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ALFRED TENNYSON. 
After the painting by G. F. Watts, R. A. 



lEnglisI) €Ui,. — ^tar Series 



TENNYSON'S 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY 



EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

MARY BO WEN, Ph.D. 

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE IN WELLESLEY COLLEGE 




GLOBE SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YOEK AND CHICAGO 



12917 

Library of Con pres.^ 

Two Copies RECEivtD 
m 30 1900 

Copynght etihy 

No <i./rr?? 



S£C(.i^:0 COPY. 
Ot.ive I'fl to 

ORDEK DIVISION, 






Copyright, 1900, by 
Globe School Book Company. 



6 ^^79 



MANHATTAN PRESS 

474 W. BROADWAY 

NEW YORK 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction : 

I. Tennyson v 

II. The Metrical Art of The Princess . . . . x 

Blank Verse x 

Lyrics xiii 

III. Critical Comments xix 

THE PRINCESS 1 

Notes 109 

Questions and Suggestions for Reading .... 131 

Questions and^Sw^gestions for Students .... 135 

Select Bibliography 138 



INTRODUCTION 

I. TENNYSO]^ 

The earliest picture of Tennyson that appeals to the 
memory is given in Mrs. Eitchie's reminiscences. ^^The 
wind . . . came sweeping through the garden of this old 
Lincolnshire rectory, and, as the wind blew, a sturdy child 
of five years old, with shining locks, stood opening his arms 
upon the blast and letting himself be blown along, and, as 
he travelled on, he made his first line of poetry and said, 
' I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind,' and he tossed 
his arms, and the gust whirled on, sweeping into the great 
abyss of winds.'' 

In the rectory of the pastoral hamlet of Somersby, " nest- 
ling embosomed in trees in a land of quiet villages, large 
fields, gray hillsides, and noble, tall-towered churches," 
Tennyson was born on August 6, 1809, the famous birth- 
year of Mrs. Browning, Holmes, Poe, and Darwin. He 
was the fourth of twelve children. A neighbor has 
described them as ^^ running about from one place to 
another, . . . they all wrote verses, they never had any 
pocket-money, they took long walks at night-time, and they 
were decidedly exclusive." Tennyson later remembered 
how they played at being "champions and warriors, de- 
fending a field or stone-heap ; or again they would set up 
opposing camps with a king in the midst of each." He 
liked, too, to recall the rambling little rectory, the Gothic, 
vaulted dining room, whose stained-glass windows cast 
" butterfly souls " on the walls ; the pleasant little drawing- 
room lined with book shelves and furnished in yellow ; the 
lawn outside, over-shadowed by larch and sycamore and 



vi INTRODUCTION 

wych-elms, which inspired his early song of autumn, "A 
spirit haunts the year's last hours.'' Beyond the garden 
path, bordered by roses, lilies, hollyhocks, and sunflowers, 
the field sloped to a brook up which he followed, one April 
day in his fifteenth year, to a wooded hollow, where he 
carved on a rock the terrible news, " Byron is dead," " a 
day when the whole world seemed to be darkened for me." 

A part of Tennyson's early education was received in the 
grammar school of the neighboring town of Louth, where he 
studied chiefly the classics. This was supplemented by 
much reading in his father's library, by close observation 
of nature, — forming a habit which lasted through his life, 
— and by ceaseless verse-writing from the time when, aged 
eight, he covered his slate with Thomsonian blank verse 
in praise of flowers, to later boyhood, when he translated 
long passages of Homer's Iliad into Popeian couplets and 
wrote a six-thousand-line epic in the manner of Scott. 

Tennyson's college days have a peculiar interest to 
readers of Tlie Princess. In his nineteenth year he entered 
Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he was soon associated 
with a remarkable group of young men, most of whom rose 
to distinction in Church or State in later life. Chief among 
them was Arthur Hallam, " The man I held as half-divine," 
with whom Tennyson formed the deep friendship which 
inspired In Memoriam. A friend describes the poet's 
appearance at that time as ^' six feet high, broad chested, 
strong limbed, his face Shakespearian, with deep eyelids, 
his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair, his 
head finely poised, his hand the admiration of sculptofs. 
. . . What struck one most about him was the union of 
strength with refinement." Another, on first seeing him, 
said, "That man must be a poet." This opinion he ful- 
filled, while still at Cambridge, by taking the university 
prize for poetry, and by publishing a volume of poems. 

His college life was ended in 1831, by the death of his 



INTRODUCTION vii 

father. Two years later Arthur Hallam died. Tennyson 
had retired to Somersby to take charge of the family and 
devote himself to poetry. Shortly before Hallam's death 
(1832) he published his second volume. After this came 
a decade of silence and quiet growth, whose truest 
biography perhaps is In Memoriam. The fruits of this 
time of meditation and experience were the two volumes 
published in 1842 which contained many of his now best- 
known shorter poems, such as Locksley Hall and ''Break, 
breaks A significant description of him at this time is 
given in a letter from Carlyle to Emerson. " Alfred is. one 
of the few to whom your own soul can say, ' Brother ! ' a 
man solitary ana sad . . . carrying a bit of Chaos about 
him, in short, which he is manufacturing into Cosmos. One 
of the finest looking men in the world. A great shock of 
rough, dusky hair ; bright, laughing, hazel eyes ; massive 
aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate ; of sallow 
brown complexion, almost Indian looking, clothes cynically 
loose, free-and-easy, smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is 
musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, 
and all that may lie between ; speech and speculation free 
and plenteous. I do not meet in these late decades such 
company over a pipe ! We shall see what he will grow to." 
On its publication in 1847, The Princess was received 
with adverse criticism and tokens of disappointment from 
the reading public. Tennyson's position as a poet was by 
this time too important to permit any production of his to 
pass unnoticed, yet the methods of his art were still con- 
sidered somewhat questionable. The Princess gave new food 
for this discussion, especially in the matters of metrical 
innovations and unusual vocabulary ; and it also aroused a 
new controversy over qualities in which he had not offended 
before, the structural unity of the poem and his comprehen- 
sion of his theme. One, not entirely unfavorable, review 
(North British Uevieic, iNIay, 1848) gives tlie reader "a 



Vlll INTRODUCTION 

notion of the utter want of interest, unity, and purpose in 
this production, considered merely as a narrative poem ; 
and of its miserable weakness and want of integrity if 
regarded, as some regard it, as a satire upon learned 
women.'^ 

The causes for this hostile reception were several, and 
some of them are still potent in present-day judgment of 
the poem. In the first place, Tennyson's position in the 
world of letters at that time had given rise to a general 
expectation of a very different kind of work. While it was 
still early in his career, yet it was not too early for a sus- 
tained masterpiece, something of dignified tone, lofty theme, 
and chastened style. Through all of the criticism evoked 
by his preceding volumes, even the most severe, there had 
been a note of recognition of his promise. His first little 
book, published in collaboration with his brother in their 
boyhood (Poems by Two Brothers, 1827), had, of course, 
passed practically unnoticed; his Poems, chiejly Lyrical, 
published during his college course (1830), was noticed in 
several leading magazines, the Westminster going so far as 
to say " Mr. Tennyson ... is a poet.'' His next volume. 
Poems (1832-3) was subjected to an onslaught in the 
Quarterly (No. XCVII.), but, as Spedding wrote later, 
" The reception though far from triumphant was not inau- 
spicious. . . . The admiration and the ridicule served 
alike to bring them into notice. . . . His genius was 
manifestly shaping a peculiar course for itself and finding 
out its proper business." The volume of 1842, Poems, was, 
however, warmly received; the general verdict was that he 
had gained in power and simplicit}^, and had treated Eng- 
lish themes in a manner nearer the standard of English 
poetry. Little poetry had appeared in the decade of his 
silence, and the public was ripe for a new poet. Several 
poems of this volume had themes from the legend of King 
Arthur, a story which poets from Milton onward had con- 



INTRODUCTION ix 

sidered the material for a great national epic. Hence, when 
a little later it was rumored that Tennyson was at work on 
a long poem, a master work, the easy inference was that he 
was writing a great English epic ^ith King Arthur as its 
hero. This disappointment died out with the publication 
in later years of the Idylls of the King. 

A second cause was the inaptitude of the theme of The 
Princess. It was a subject too fanciful for dignified treat- 
ment, or else too weighty for poetry, according to the views 
of different readers. The education of women had not 
reached a point where it could be discussed with humor. 
The chief depreciation of the poem in this matter centred 
around the character of the Princess Ida, who was neither 
heroic enough for one class of readers nor feminine enough 
for another. The mock-heroic treatment offended all varie- 
ties of readers. 

A third cause was that neither critics nor readers were 
susceptible to the peculiarly rich artistic beauty of the 
poem. The Princess has been called "a splendid failure." 
But, whatever their opinion in regard to its failure, its first 
readers were unable to perceive its splendor. 

The first to champion the poem was Professor James 
Hadley of Yale, in 1849, who defended the structural art 
underlying the medley of " every clime and age," and also 
pointed out the exquisite metrical effects and the charm of 
language. Other critics, notably Charles Kingsley, Aubrey 
de Vere and F. W. Eobertson, helped swell the rising cur- 
rent of praise and elucidation. The third edition (1850) 
contributed not a little to this later view by its inclusion of 
the lyrics. P>ut perhaps more than by anything else it was 
popularized by the publication of In Memoriam in 1850, 
which reestablished, and this time steadfastly, Tennyson's 
place among English poets, and in the hearts of English- 
speaking people. 

The remainder of Tennyson's long life was chiefiy one of 



xii INTRODUCTION 

two unaccented followed by one accented syllable, takes the 
place of the first iambic foot in — 

" We are twice as quick. And here she shook aside." 
Of the second in — 

" By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led." 
Of the third in — 

'' Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn." 
Of the fourth in — 

*' Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said." 
Of the fifth in — 

" Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood.'' ^ 

The dactyl, an accented syllable followed by two unac- 
cented, thus being a kind of prolonged trochee, as the ana- 
paest is a prolonged iambus, takes the place of the first 
iambic foot in — 

" Muttering dissolved ; then with a smile that look'd." 
Of the third in — 

*' Whispers of war, entering the sudden light." 
Of the first and second (with an extra syllable), — 

'' Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn." 

It should be noticed that the use of the anapaests and 
dactyls gives a rippling movement which can be used for 
certain musical effects corresponding to the thought of the 
line. V 

The second alteration, that of shifting the caesural pause, 
is used chiefly for structural breaks within the paragraph, 
thus adding rhetorical force to the metrical emphasis of 
certain words or phrases. The farther the pause is re- 
moved from its natural position after the third foot, the 
greater is the emphasis thrown on the syllables immediately 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

preceding or following it. If it occurs in the middle of a 
foot, the emphasis on the accented word of that foot is 
greater than when it comes between feet. An example of 
its occurrence in the fifth foot, thus throwing eloquent 
emphasis on the ironic monosyllable, is, — 

*' And every spoken tongue should lord you — Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us." 

Of its occurrence just after the first syllable, — 

*' Peace ! there are those to avenge us and they come." 

''And all the plain, brand, mace, and shaft and shield — 
Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil banged." 

It_ may be noted that there are verses in which the 
csesural pause is scarcely perceptible ; these are usually in 
passages of simple description. Shiftings of the csesural 
pause occur most frequently in passages of speech, espe- 
cially of eloquent or dramatic speech, and in passages of 
description of quick and irregular action, as of a battle. 
Verses occur also, but not frequently, in which there are 
two caesural pauses, a minor and a major. For example : — 

'' If not — myself were like enough, O girls." 

Another infrequent device is the addition of an unac- 
cented syllable after the last foot, giving what is known as 
the feminine or weak ending. 

An example is, — 

''As strangely as it came, and on my spirits t 
Settled a gentle cloud of melanc/ioZ?/." 

II. Lyrics. The eleven lyrics of The Pn'}}cess are greatly 
varied in metrical structure. The definition of the lyric 
requires that it should be musical in sound, and emotional in 
thought. The former requirement usually is fulfilled by a 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

freer use of the different metrical feet than is usual in blank 
verse ; by variation in verse lengthy and by use of rime, 
which groups the verses in stanzas. Other devices, such as 
alliteration, tone-color, and feminine endings, are used more 
frequently than in blank verse. It is chiefly by use of 
these latter devices in place of the more usual, mentioned 
before, that Tennyson makes the blank verse lyric, " Come 
down, maid, from yonder mountain height" (Canto VII.), 
truly lyrical in form as it is undoubtedly lyrical in emotion ; 
the last three lines are wonderfully musical, but the seventh 
and eighth — 

" And come, for Love is of the valley, come 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down," 

nave more of the singing quality peculiarly appropriate 
to emotional expression. Other unrimed lyrics occur in 
The Princess; but by sentence structure and refrains these 
are broken into stanzas. An excellent example is, "Kow' 
sleeps the crimson petal, now the white " (Canto III.) ; where 
each stanza is distinguished by the initial word " now," 
and the closing word '' me," this latter giving an effect of 
rime; each stanza is also distinct as an independent sen- 
tence, yet they are purposely similar in thought and in 
grammatical structure. A very different theme is managed 
in the same way in the song of triumph, '' Our enemies have 
fall'n" (Canto II.). Here the blank verse falls into stanzas 
because of the initial phrase of each sentence. The same 
method is used in the exquisite " Tears, idle tears " (C^nto 
IV.), where in place of an initial phrase we have the refrain 
phrase at the end of each stanza, ^^the days that are no 
more." Aside from this the deep emotion is given lyrical 
expression by the tone-color and the measured syllables. 
The fifth of the unrimed lyrics, " Oh, swallow, swallow, 
flying, flying south " (Canto IV.), effects a stanzaic structure 



INTRODUCTION XV 

chiefly by sentences ; and also by the use of parallelism, a 
.device familiar in the Psalms. An example is, — 

" And brief the sun of .summer in the north, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the south." 

Another kind of lyric in which Tennyson is peculiarly 
successful is that which contains a suggestion of a story 
and is couched in very simple meter. These may be termed 
hallad-lyrics. The best example is "Home they brought 
her warrior dead.'^ The meter is that used in many old 
ballads, iambic, four-accented (tetrameter), xa xa xa xa. 
Nearly always, however, the first syllable is omitted (cata- 
lectic verse). These verses are grouped in stanzas of four, 
bound together by alternate rimes, as "dead, cry, said, 
die," (a b a b). In this lyric and in the next, the expression 
of emotion is not put in the mouth of the speaker but is 
described as that of a third person. The meter in the next, 
" Thy voice is heard through rolling drums " (Canto IV.), is 
the same except that it is not catalectic. The third ballad- 
lyric, " As thro' the land at eve we went," differs from the 
preceding two in having a more complicated system of 
rimes and a refrain at the close of each stanza, as well as in 
being directly expressed. It also substitutes three-accented 
verses several times for the prevailing four-accented. The 
rime scheme expressed in alphabetical symbols is : a b c c ^, 
dbe?;, fbgg^. 

The three remaining lyrics liave more of the singing 
quality than the preceding, and may perhaps be designated 
as song-lyrics. The simplest of these in metrical scheme is 
"Ask me no more" (Canto VI.). The meter is regularly 
five-accented ; the rime scheme, abba; its distinguishing 
feature is the refrain, "Ask me no more," at the beginning 
and end of each stanza. The skilful manner in which it is 
woven into the thought of the poem, adding a new touch 
each time, should be studied. And especially noticeable is 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

the monosyllabic quality, there being only eight polysyl- 
labic words in the lyric. A more elaborate metrical struc- 
ture belongs to " The splendor falls on castle walls.'' The 
basis is the ballad meter, iambic of four accents, and stanzas 
of four verses alternately rimed. To each stanza is added 
a two-verse refrain of six-accented verses. The structure is 
further complicated by the introduction of mid-verse rime 
in the first and third verses of each stanza, e.g.^ " The splen- 
dor falls on castle njolls. The refrain verses contain a great 
deal of repetition of words; they also have peculiarly inter 
esting, irregular pauses, imitative of the sound of a bugle 
and its echoes. The last lyric, the lullaby, " Sweet and 
low'' (Canto III.), has almost every technical device of the 
lyric. The general movement is iambic, but the verses are 
catalectic; very often a pause is substituted for an unac- 
cented syllable, as in " Loiu, low, breathe and hloiv,^^ where 
there are four accents and only five syllables ; if an " and " 
is supplied before each accented syllable, the value of the 
pause is obvious. Anapaestic feet are supplied in several 
verses, as, " i^ather will come to his hahe in the nestJ^ The 
verses are alternately of four and three accents, except the 
refrain which has five. The swing of rhythm is kept by 
the vowel length and rhetorical importance of the accented 
syllables. The lullaby effect is gained by the frequency of 
pauses in place of unaccented syllables ; this gives the full 
time to pronounce the accented syllable and let it die away. 
It is helped, too, by the very frequent repetition of words, 
because a repeated word is received by the mind half uncon- 
sciously, the sound of it being familiar. The singing quality 
and the lullaby quality are further heightened by the lime- 
scheme which repeats the rime sound so many times in each 
stanza ; it is ab ab aa be. The lyric has also great richness 
of alliteration and tone-color, a subject which will be 
treated under the next section. 

III. Tone-color. The poet has at his command, in addi- 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

tion to the varied resources of the purely metrical art^ which 
deals chiefly with accent and measure, the more subtile 
material of the sounds of words or of letters. All such 
delicate effects may for the present be roughly, but inade- 
quately, classified under the general term of tone-color. To 
a sensitive ear, every speech sound has an expressive quality 
aside from its intellectual significance, a quality which may 
be used to supplement the thought expressed in the word. 
Tennyson was peculiarly gifted in this respect; it would 
be easy to go largely into the subject with illustrations from 
his work, but it is possible here to touch upon only a few 
scattered points of the matter. 

In the first place, alliteration (or initial rime) may be 
considered under this head, for, although it once had the 
function of rime — that of tying verses together — yet it 
now is used chiefly for tone-effect. An example of the 
effectiveness of the slight hiss of the s sound is in — 

'' Like silver hammers falling 
On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
Of fountains spouted up and showering down." 

The liquid quality of I and the muted h give a low, sleepy 

tone to — 

'' Low, low, breathe and blow." 

An oddly expressive effect is given in — 

" Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry." 

A less obvious device mingles alliteration, or initial 
rime, proper with the employment of words in which this 
alliterative letter (rime-sound) occurs, but not as the ini- 
tial, a form of alliteration sometimes called lurking. For 
example : — 

" The moan of doves in iwimemorial eb>is, 
And ?7iur??iuring of innu??ierable bees." 

Often the alliteration, initial and lurking, plays upon two 
or more sounds, as in — 



xviu INTRODUCTION 

"Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves." 
" Of solemn psalms and silver Zitanies." 

Another form of tone-color, one to which the term is more 
exactly applicable, deals with the sounds of vowels instead of 
consonants. Tennyson is especially felicitous in the use 
of open " round " o sounds, to give an effect of rich melody, 
as in — 

" While the great organ almost burst his pipes 
Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court. 
A long melodious thunder." 
And in — 

"Over the rolling waters go." 

Another effect of o, that of suggesting roundness, is in — 
" Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere." 

An example of light, short vowel sounds in connection with 
light consonants is — 

" Meh'ssa hitting all we saw with shafts 
Of gentle satire, km to charity." 

An efiPective use of short u comes in — 

" I heard the piiffed piirsuer, at mine ear 
Biibbled the nightingale." 

The use of tone-color to give beautiful effects, as in the 
preceding examples, is most frequent in the lyrics and in 
lyrical passages of the blank verse : there are other pas- 
sages where it is used to give harshness and ugliness fitting 
the subject ; this is most often attained by consonants 
as in — ^ 

" Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
Amygdaloid and trachyte." 

" Thereat the Lady stretch' d a vulture throat 
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile." 



INTRODUCTION xix 



III. CRITICAL COMMENTS 

" We have remarked five distinct excellencies of his own 
manner. First, his luxuriance of imagination, and, at the 
same time, his control over it. Secondly, his power of em- 
bodying himself in ideal characters, or, rather, moods of 
character, with such extreme accuracy of adjustment that 
the circumstances of the narration seem to have a natural 
correspondence with the predominant feeling, and, as it 
were, to be evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, 
his vivid, picturesque delineation of objects and the peculiar 
skill with which he holds all of them fused, to borrow a 
metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emotion. 
Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures and exquisite 
modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the swell 
and fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated 
habits of thought, implied in these compositions, and im- 
parting a mellow soberness of tone, more impressive to our 
minds than if the author had drawn up a set of opinions in 
verse and sought to instruct the understanding, rather than 
to communicate the love of beauty to the heart." — A. H. 
Hallam. 

" After all that may be said about the absurdity and in- 
coherence of the story, it certainly produces the impression 
of reality in a degree which, when the nature of the inci- 
dents is considered, must be thought truly wonderful. So 
vividly and clearly does the poet delineate the creatures of 
his fancy that we cannot help viewing them as actual exist- 
ences. We find ourselves sympathizing with the Prince, 
and wishing him success in his arduous suit. We feel the 
rush of breathless expectation in the hot melee of the tour- 
ney. We wait anxiously the turn of fate beside tlie sick- 
bed of the wounded lover. We give liim our heartiest 
congratulations on his eventual recovery and success- It is 



XX INTRODUCTION 

only When we set ourselves to criticising that we are struck 
with the improbability of that which moved us, and become 
ashamed of our former feelings. In no former production 
has the author succeeded in giving so much the air of reality 
to the objects of his imagination; nor has he shown in any 
one so much delicacy and distinctness in the delineation of 
character.'^ — James Hadley. 

'' The poem of The Princess, as a work of art, is the most 
complete and satisfying of all Tennyson's works. It pos- 
sesses a play of fancy, of humor, of pathos, and of passion 
which give it variety; while the feeling of unity is un- 
broken throughout. It is full of passages of the rarest 
beauty and most exquisite workmanship. The songs it con- 
tains are unsurpassed in English literature. The diction is 
drawn from the treasure-house of old English poetry, — 
from Chaucer, from Shakespeare, and the poets of the Eliza- 
bethan age. The versification is remarkable for its variety ; 
while the rhythm, in stateliness and expression, is modelled 
upon Milton. There are passages which, in power over 
language to match sound with sense, are not excelled by 
anything in Paradise Lost for strength, or in Milton's minor 
poems for sweetness. The poem abounds also in evidences 
of the prophetic insight which has already been referred to 
as the mark of a true poet. In the year 1847, long before 
Darwin had commenced the present great revolution in 
scientific thought, evolutionary theories were propounded 
by the poet in the imaginary halls of his female university. 
Huxley himself could not have sketched more vividly than 
the Lady Psyche the progressive development of the world 
from the primal cosmic vapor. The Princess, with the accu- 
racy taught only recently by the spectroscope, calls the 
sun ^a nebulous star.' When she gets her mind off the 
brooch, she becomes really profound in her analysis of our 
notions of creation as stages of successive acts. Our minds, 
she teaches, are so constituted that we must of necessity 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

apprehend everything in the form and aspect of successive 
time; but, in the Almighty fiat, 'Let there he light,'' the 
whole of the complex potentialities of the universe were in 
fact hidden.'' — S. E. Dawson^. 

"The affections cannot be repressed; without love, life 
is unfinished. Apart from this underlying motive, which 
rises to the surface only with the end of the poem, Tlie 
Princess is little but a dreamy story to read in a garden on 
a summer afternoon, full of music, and fuller still of rich 
and suggestive imagery. The insertion of the songs, deli- 
cate and beautiful in themselves, serves only to accentuate 
the artificiality of the whole work. Tennyson's detractors 
are ready to accuse him of over-refinement ; of an eye too 
prone to color, and an ear too sensitive to melody, losing 
in their rapture the sights and sounds of the real, eternal 
truth. If such accusation were to be urged, it could per- 
haps, be best urged from an analysis of The Frhtcess. For 
here Tennyson is in his dreamiest and his least virile mood ; 
here he indulges his senses to the waste of his thought. 
There is a time for everything; and TJie Princess is not 
without its special charm. It is not Tennyson's highest 
work, neither is it his lowest ; it merely requires a sympa- 
thetic temperament in the reader to appear satisfying. It 
needs a temperament of momentary laziness, apt to languor 
and inclined to a light satire, which shall not busy itself 
to wound too deeply. With this mind, we shall find TJie 
Princess a storehouse of good things, a midsummer day's 
dream with a spell and fantasy that hold us to the end." 
— Arthur Waugh. 

" The Princess enshrines the woman's question as it ajv 
peared nearly fifty years ago; and, considering all that has 
been done since then, it is a prophetic utterance. He has 
touched with grace and clearness a number of the phases of 
opinion which now prevail, and which then liad only begun 
to prevail, embodying each phase in one of his characters. 



XXli INTRODUCTION 

The woman's question owes a great deal to The Princess^ 
— Stopford a. Brooke. 

" The Princess is undoubtedly Tennyson's greatest effort, 
if not exactly in comedy, in a vein verging towards the 
comic — a side on which he was not so well equipped for 
offence or for defence as on the other. But it is a master- 
piece. Exquisite as its author's verse always is, it was 
never more exquisite than here, whether in blank verse or 
in the (superadded) lyrics ; while none of his deliberately 
arranged plays contains characters half so good as those of 
the Princess herself, of Lady Blanche and Lady Psyche, of 
Cyril, of the two kings, and even of one or two others, and 
that, glanced at, enabled him to carry off whatever was fan- 
tastical in the conception with almost unparalleled felicity. 
It may or may not be agreed that the question of the equal- 
ity of the sexes is one of the distinguishing questions of this 
century ; and some of those who would give it that position 
may or may not maintain, if they think it worth while, that 
it is treated here too lightly, while their opponents may 
wish that it had been treated more lightly still. But this 
very difference will point the unbiassed critic to the same 
conclusion, that Tennyson has hit the golden mean; while 
that, whatever he has hit or missed in subject, the verse of 
his essay is golden, no one who is competent will doubt. 
Such lyrics as ^The splendor falls,' and ^ Tears, idle tears,' 
such blank verse as that of the closing passage, would raise 
to the topmost heights of poetry whatever subject it was 
spent upon." — George Saixtsbury. 

I wish to acknowledge my grateful obligation to Mr. Fullerton ^L. 
Waldo, of the Pomfret School, Pomfret Centre, Connecticut, and to 
Mr. Alexander Wheeler, of the Bridgeport High School, of Bridge- 
port, Connecticut, for practical suggestions ; and to Dr. Eleanor P. 
Hammond, of the University of Chicago, for assistance in matters of 
scholarship. 

Mary Bowen. 

Wellesley College, 1900. 



THE PRINCESS 

A MEDLEY 

PROLOGUE • 

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
5 The neighbouring borough with their Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too, — with others of our set, 
Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place. 

10 And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall. 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the Abbey ruin in the park, 

15 Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time \ 
And on the tables every clime and age 
Jumbled together ; celts and calumets, 
Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 
Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 

20 Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere. 
The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubs 
From the isles of palm; and higher on the walls, 
Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 
His own forefathers' arms and armour hung. 



2 THE PRINCESS 

25 And ^^this/' he said, ^^was Hugh's at Agincourt; 
And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon : 
A good knight he ! we keep a chronicle 
AYith all about him " — which he brought, and I 
Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, 

30 Half -legend, half -historic, counts and kings 
Who laid about them at their wills and died ; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate. 
Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 

35 '^ miracle of women," said the book, 
'^ noble heart who, being strait-besieged 
By this wild king to force her to his wish. 
Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a soldier's death. 
But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost — 

40 Her stature more than mortal in the burst 
Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — • 
Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate. 
And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 
She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, 

45 And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall. 
And some were push'd with lances from the rock. 
And part were drown' d within the whirling brook : 
miracle of noble womanhood ! " 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; 

50 And, I all rapt in this, " Come out," he said, 
" To the Abbey : there is Aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thro' the park : strange was the sight to me ; 

55 For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : 
The patient leaders of their Institute 



PROLOGUE 

Taught tlieni with facts. One reared a font of stone, 

60 And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 
The fountain of the moment, playing, now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 
Danced like a wisp : and somewhat lower down 

65 A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon. Echo answer'd in her sleep 
From hollow fields : and here were telescopes 
For azure views ; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 

70 Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter : round the lake 
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied, 
And shook the lilies : perch'd about the knolls, 
A dozen angry models jetted steam : 
A petty railway ran : a fire balloon 

75 Eose gem-like up before the dusky groves. 
And dropt a fairy parachute, and past : 
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
They flashed a saucy message to and fro 
Between the mimic stations ; so that sport 

80 Went hand in hand with science ; otherwhere 
Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd 
And stump'd the wicket ; babies roll'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids 
Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light 

85 And shadow, while the t wangling violin 
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, and overhead 
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight, and smacking of the time; 
90 And long we gazed, but satiated at length 

Came to the ruins. High-arch'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, 



4 THE PRINCESS 

Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house ; but all within 
95 The sward was trim as any garden lawn : 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbour seats : and there was Ealph himself, 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 

100 As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 

Half child, half woman as she was, had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm. 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk. 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 

105 Glow like a sunbeam : near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests. 
And there we join'd them : then the maiden Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd, 

110 And all things great ; but we, unworthier, told 
Of college : he had climb'd across the spikes. 
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars. 
And he had breathed the proctor's dogs ; and one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 

115 But honeying at the whisper of a lord ; 
And one the master, as a rogue in grain 
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought 

120 My book to mind : and opening this I read 
Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of ner 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls. 
And much I praised her nobleness, and " Where," 

125 Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him) " lives there such a woman now ? " 




'And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair." 



PROLOGUE 

Quick answer'd Lilia '' There are thousands now 
Such women, but convention beats them down : 
It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 

130 You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 
Ah, were I something great ! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, 
That love to keep us children ! Oh, I wish 
That I were some great princess ! I would build 

135 Far off from men a college like a man's. 

And I would teach them all that men are taught ; 
We are twice as quick ! '' And here she shook aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said, smiling, ^^ Pretty were the sight 
110 If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 
\Vith prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans. 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty gowns. 
But move as rich as emperor-moths, or Ralph 
145 Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear. 
If there were many Lilias in the brood. 
However deep you might embower the nest. 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny, silken-sandal'd foot : 
150 " That's your light way ; but I would make it death 
For any male thing but to peep at us." 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd ; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she : 
155 But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 
And ^^ petty Ogress," and ^^ ungrateful Puss," 
And swore he long'd at college, only long'd. 
All else was well, for she-society. 



6 THE PRINCESS 

They boated and they cricketed ; they talk'd 
160 At wine^ in clubs, of art, of politics ; 

They lost their weeks ; they vext the souls of deans ; 

They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, 

And caught the blossom of the flying terms, 

But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 
165 The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke. 

Part banter, part affection. 

^^True," she said, 

" We doubt not that. Oh, yes, you miss'd us much ; 

I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did ! " 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 

170 Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye. 
And takes a lady's finger with all care. 
And bites it for true heart and not for harm. 
So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung it. " Doubt my word again ! " he said. 

175 " Come, listen ! here is proof that you were miss'd : 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read ; 
And there we took one tutor as to read : 
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and square 
Were out of season : never man, I think, 

180 So molder'd in a sinecure as he : 

For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet 

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 

We did but talk you over, pledge you all 

In wassail ; often, like as many girls — 

185 Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 
As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here. 
And ivhafs my thought and when and where and hoiv, 
And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 

190 As here at Christmas." 

She remember'd that : 



PROLOGUE 

A pleasant game, she thought : she liked it more 

Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 

But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, 

She wonder'd, by themselves ? 

A half -disdain 
195 Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : 

And Walter nodded at me ; "He began. 

The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so 

We forged a sevenfold story. Kind ? what kind ? 

Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 
200 Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 

Time by the fire in winter.'' 

, " Kill him now. 

The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too,'' 

Said Lilia ; " Why not now ? " the maiden Aunt. 

" Why not a summer's as a winter's tale ? 
205 A tale for summer as befits the time. 

And something it should be to suit the place. 

Heroic, for a hero lies beneath. 

Grave, solemn ! " 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 

To something so mock-solemn that I laugh'd, 
210 And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker. 

Hid in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 

(A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face 

With colour) turn'd to me with, " As you will ; 
215 Heroic if you will, or what you will, 

Or be yourself your hero if you will." 

" Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamor'd he, 
^^ And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you 
220 The Prince to win her ! " 

" Then follow me, the Prince," 



8 THE PRINCESS 

I answered; '^each be hero in his turn! 
Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. — 
Heroic seems our Princess as required — 
But something made to suit with time and place, 

225 A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 
A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 
A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 
And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 
For which the good Sir Ealph had burnt them all 

230 This njere a medley ! we should have him back 
Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us. 
No matter : we will say whatever comes. 
And let the ladies sing us, if they will. 
From time to time, some ballad or a song 

235 To give us breathing-space." 

So I began. 
And the rest followed : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
And here I give the story and the songs. 



CANTO I 

A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl. 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 

5 There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold. 
Dying, that none of all our blood should know 
The shadow from the substance, and that one 

10 Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 
For so, my mother said, the story ran. 
And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 
An old and strange affection of the house. 
Myself too had weird seizures. Heaven knows what : 

15 On a sudden in the midst of men and day. 
And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane, 

20 And paw'd his beard, and mutter'd '' catalepsy." 
My mother pitying made a thousand prayers, — 
My mother was as mild as any saint. 
Half-canonized by all that looked on her. 
So gracious was her tact and tenderness. 

25 But my good father thought a king a king ; 
He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand 

9 



10 THE PRINCESS 

To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 
Keach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 

30 For judgment. 

]^ow it chanced that I had been, 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighbouring Princess : she to me 
Was proxy- wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old ; and still from time to time . 

35 Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart. 
And one dark tress ; and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen. 

40 But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her : these brought back 
A present, a great labour of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 

45 Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
He said there was a compact ; that was true : 
But then she had a will ; was he to blame ? 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 

50 That morning in the presence room I stood 
With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault), but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 

55 And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face 
Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, 



CANTO I 11 

Inflamed with wrath : he started on his feet, 
60 Tore the king's letter, snow'd it down, and rent 
The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring her in a whirlwind : then he chew'd 
65 The thrice-turn'd cud of wrath, and cook'd his spleen, 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. " My father, let me go. 

It cannot be but some gross error lies 

In this report, this answer of a king, 
70 Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable . 

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen. 

Whatever my grief to find her less than fame, 

May rue the bargain made.'' And Florian said: 

" I have a sister at the foreign court, 
75 Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, 

Who wedded with a nobleman from thence : 

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear. 

The lady of three castles in that land : 

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 
80 And Cyril whisper'd : " Take me with you, too." 

Then, laughing, '•' what, if these weird seizures come 

Upon you in those lands, and no one near 

To point you out the shadow from the truth ! 

Take me : I'll serve you better in a strait ; 
85 I grate on rusty hinges here : " but, ^^No ! " 

Roar'd the rough king, " you shall not ; we ourself 

Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 

In iron gauntlets : break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
90 Thro' the wild woods that hung al)out the town ; 
Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out ; 



12 THE PRINCESS 

Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed 
In the green gleam of dewy-tassePd trees : 
What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? 
95 Proud look'd the lips : but, while I meditated, 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
Went with it, " Follow, follow, thou shalt win." 

100 Then, ere the silver sickle of that month 
Became her golden shield, I stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived. 
Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread 
To hear my father's clamour at our backs 

105 With " Ho 1 " from some bay-window shake the night ; 
But all was quiet : from the bastion'd walls 
Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropt, 
And flying reach'd the frontier : then we crost 
To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 

110 And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness. 
We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; crack'd and small his voice, 
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind 

115 On glassy water drove his cheek in lines ; 
A little dry old man, without a star, 
Not like a -king; three days he feasted us. 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came. 
And my betroth'd. '* You do us. Prince,'' he said, 

120 Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 

^' All honour. We remember love ourselves 
In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass 
Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 
I think the year in which our olives fail'd. 



I 



I 



I 



CANTO I 13 

125 I would you had her, Prince, with all my heart, 

With my full heart : but there were widows here. 

Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; 

They fed her theories, in and out of place 

Maintaining that with equal husbandry 
130 The woman were an equal to the man. 

They harp'd on this ; with this our banquets rang ; 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ; 

Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot 

To hear them : knowledge, so my daughter held, 
135 Was all in all : they had but been, she thought. 

As children ; they must lose the child, assume 

The woman : then. Sir, awful odes she wrote. 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of. 

But all she is and does is awful ; odes 
140 About this losing of the child ; and rhymes 

And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 

Beyond all reason : these the women sang ; 

And they that know such things — I sought but peace ; 

No critic I — would call them masterpieces : 
145 They mastered me. At last she begg'd a boon, 

A certain summer palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier : I said no, 

Yet, being an easy man, gave it : and there. 

All wild to found an University 
150 For maidens, on the spur she fled ; and more 

We know not, — only this : they see no men. 

Not ev'n her brother Arac, nor the twins 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon ; and I 
155 (Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine : but since 

(And I confess with right) you think me bound 

In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 



14 THE PRINCESS 

160 Almost at naked nothing.'^ 

Thus the king: 
And I, tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 
Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 
But chafing me on fire to find my bride) 

165 Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 
Many a long league back to the North. At last, 
From hills that look'd across a land of hope, 
We dropt with evening on a rustic town 
Set in a gleaming river's crescent curve, 

170 Close at the boundary of the liberties ; 

There, enter'd an old hostel, calPd mine host 
To council, plied him with his richest Avines, 
And showed the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low sibilation, stared 
175 As blank as death in marble ; then exclaim'd, 

Averring it was clear against all rules 

For any man to go ; but as his brain 

Began to mellow, '' If the king," he said, 

'' Had given us letters, was he bound to speak ? 
180 The king would bear him out ; " and at the last — 

The summer of the vine in all his veins — 

'^ No doubt that we might make it worth his while. 

She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 

She scared him ; life ! he never saw the like ; 
185 She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave : 

And he, he reverenced his liege lady there ; 

He always made a point to post with mares ; 

His daughter and his housemaid were the boys : 

The land, he understood, for miles about 
190 Was till'd by women ; all the swine were sows. 

And all the dogs " — 

But while he jested thus, 



CANTO I 15 

A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, 

EeiDembering how we three presented Maid 

Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 
195 In masque or pageant at my father's court. 

We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; 

He brought it, and himself, a sight to shake 

The midriff of despair with laughter, holp 

To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes 
200 We rustled : him we gave a costly bribe 

To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 

And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We foUow'd up the river as we rode, 

And rode till midnight when the college lights 
205 Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 

And linden alley : then we past an arch. 

Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 

From four wing'd horses dark against the stars ; 

And some inscription ran along the front, 
210 But deep in shadow : further on we gain'd 

A little street, half garden and lialf house ; 

But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 

Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 

On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 
215 Of fountains spouted up and showering down 

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 

And all about us peaPd the nightingale, 

Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign, 
220 By two sphere lamps, blazon'd like Heaven and Earth 
With constellation and with continent. 
Above an entry : riding in, we calPd ; 
A plump-arm'd ostleress, and a stable wonch 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 



16 THE PRINCESS 

225 Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave 
Upon a pillar'd porch, the bases lost 
In laurel : her we ask'd of that and this, 
And who were tutors. ^^Lady Blanche,'' she said, 

230 '^ And Lady Psyche." " Which Avas prettiest, 

Best-natured ? '' ^' Lady Psyche.'' " Hers are we," 
One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 
In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East : 

235 " Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your own, 
As Lady Psyche's pupils." This I seal'd : 
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, 

240 And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes : 
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 
And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 
To float about a glimmering night, and watch 
A full sea, glaz'd with muffled moonlight, swell 

245 On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 




" Oh, there above the little grave, 
We kiss'd again with tears." 



As thro' the land at eve we went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
Oh, we fell out, I know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears, 
When we fall out with those we love. 

And kiss again with tears ! 
For when we came where lay the child 

We lost in other years. 
There above the little grave. 
Oh, there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears ! 



17 



CANTO II 

At break of day the college portress came : 

She brought us Academic, silks^ in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 

And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 

5 And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 
She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 
The Princess Ida waited : out we paced, 
I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 
All round with laurel, issued in a court 

10 Compact of lucid marbles, boss'd with lengths 
Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 
The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, 
Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst ; 

15 And here and there on lattice edges lay 
Or book or lute ; but hastily we past, 
And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 
There at a board by tome and paper sat. 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne, 

20 All beauty compass'd in a female form. 
The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, 
Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head. 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 

25 From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands. 
And to her feet. She rose her height, and said; 

18 



CANTO II 19 

^' We give you welcome : not without redound 

Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
30 The first-fruits of the stranger : aftertime, 

And that full voice which circles round the grave, 

Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 

What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ? " 

" We of the court,'' said Cyril. " From the court,'' 
35 She answer'd, '^ then ye know the Prince ? " And he : 

" The climax of his age ! as tho' there were 

One rose in all the world, your highness that, 

He worships your ideal." She replied : 

"We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
40 This barren verbiage, current among men. 

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 

Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 

As arguing love of knowledge and of power ; 

Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, 
45 We dream not of him : when we set our hand 

To this great work, we purposed with ourself 

Never to wed. You likewise will do well. 

Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 

The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, 
50 Some future time, if so indeed you will. 

You may with those self-styled our lords ally 

Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale." 

At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves. 

Perused the matting ; then an officer 
55 Rose up and read the statutes, such as these: 

Not for three years to correspond with home ; 

Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 

Not for three years to speak with any men ; 

And many more, which, hastily subscribed, 
(JO We enter'd on the boards : and "Now," she cried, 

" Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! 



20 THE PRINCESS 

Our statues ! — not of those that men desire, 

Sleek Odalisques, or oracles of mode, 

Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she 

65 That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she, 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall. 
The Carian Artemisia strong in war. 
The Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, Cornelia, with the Palmyrene 

70 That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 
Of Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
Convention, since to look on noble forms 
Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 
That which is higher. Oh, lift your natures up : 

75 Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seaPd : 
Drink deep, nntil the habits of the slave. 
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 
And slander, die. Better not be at all 

80 Than not be noble. Leave ns : you may go : 
To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 
The fresh arrivals of the week before ; 
For they press in from all the provinces, 
And fill the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing waved 

85 Dismissal : back again we crost the court 
To Lady Psyche's : as we enter'd in. 
There sat along the forms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, . 
A patient range of pupils ; she herself 

90 Erect behind a desk of satin wood, 

A quick brunette, well-molded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd. 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, headed like a star, 

95 Her maiden babe, a double April old, 



CANTO II 21 

Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 
Then Florian, but no livelier than the dame 
That whispered " Asses' ears '' among the sedge, 
" My sister.'' " Comely, too, by all that's fair," 
100 Said Cyril. " Oh, hush, hush ! " and she began. 

t" This world was once a fluid haze of light. 
Till toward the center set the starry tides. 
And eddied into suns that, wheeling, cast 
The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
105 Tattoo'd or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 

Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate. 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 
» Thereupon she took 

P A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past ; 

no Glanced at the legendary Amazon 
L As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
P Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; 
Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
115 Of empire, and the woman's state in each. 

How far from just ; till, warming with her theme. 
She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique 
And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomet 
With much contempt, and came to chivalry : 
120 When some respect, however slight, was paid 
To woman, superstition all awry : 
However then com^nenced the dawn : a beam 
Had slanted forward, falling in a land 
Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 
125 Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 
To leap the rotten pales of })rejudice, 
Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 
Kone lordlier than themselves but that which made 



22 THE PRINCESS 

Woman and man. She had founded ; they must build. 

130 Here might they learn whatever men were taught : 
Let them not fear : some said their heads were less : 
Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 
For often fineness compensated size : 
Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 

135 With using ; thence the man's, if more was more ; 
He took advantage of his strength to be 
First in the field : some ages had been lost ; 
But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 
Was Jonger ; and albeit their glorious names 

140 Were fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truth 
The highest is the measure of the man. 
And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 
Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 
But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so 

145 With woman : and in arts of government, 
Elizabeth and others ; arts of war, 
The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace, 
Sappho and others vied with any man : 
And, last not least, she who had left her place, 

150 And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 
To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 
In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 
Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy, 

155 Dilating on the future : '' everywhere 

Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world. 
Two in the liberal offices of life. 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 

160 Of science, and the secrets of the mind : 
Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more: 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 



CANTO II 23 

Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world. '^ 

165 She ended here, and beckon'd us : the rest 
Parted; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 
In gratulation, till as when a boat 
Tacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voice 

170 Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, 

'' My brother ! '' '' Well, my sister/' '' Oh,'' said she, 
'' What do you here ? and in this dress ? and these ? 
Why who are these ? a wolf within the fold ! 
A pack of wolves '! the Lord be gracious to me ! 

175 A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all ! " 

" No plot, no plot," he answer'd. '^ Wretched boy, 
How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 
' Let no man enter in on pain of death ' ? " 
" And if I had," he answer'd, ^^ who could think 

180 The softer Adams of your Academe, 
sister. Sirens tho' they be, were such 
As chanted on the blanching bones of men ? " 
^' But you will find it otherwise," she said. 
'^ You jest : ill jesting with edge-tools ! my vow 

185 Binds me to speak, and oh that iron will, 
That ax-like edge unturnable, our Head, 
The Princess ! " ^^ Well then, Psyche, take my life. 
And nail me like a weasel on a grange 
For warning : bury me beside the gate, 

190 And cut this epitaph above my bones, — 
Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 
All for the common good of womankind. ^^ 
" Let me die too," said Cyril, " having seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 

195 " Albeit so mask'd. Madam, I love the truth ; 



24 THE PRINCESS 

Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman^ affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida : here^ for here she was, 
And thus (what other way was left) I came." 

200 a Sir, Prince ! I have no country ; none ; 
If any, this ; but none. Whatever I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir ? love-whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 

205 Who am not mine, say, live: the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent ; but prepare : I speak ; it f alls.'^ 
^•' Yet pause," I said : " for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein, 
Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, 

210 To scare the fowl from fruit : if more there be, 
If more and acted on, what follows ? war ; 
Your own work marr'd : for this your Academe, 
Whichever side be victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 

215 With all fair theories only made to gild 

A stormless summer." " Let the Princess judge 
Of that," she said : " farewell. Sir — and to you. 
I shudder at the sequel, but I go." 

" Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
220 " The fifth in line from that old Florian, 
Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 
Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights). 
As he bestrode my Grandsire when he fell, 
225 And all else fled ? We point to it, and we say, 
' The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold. 
But branches current yet in kindred veins.' " 
'' Are you that Psyche," Florian added ; " she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills, 



CANTO II 25 

230 Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 
And snared the squirrel of the glen ? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 
To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 

235 My sickness down to happy dreams ? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one ? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you now ? " 
'• You are that Psyche,'' Cyril said, " for whom 
I would be that for ever which I seem, 

240 Woman, if I might sit beside your feet. 
And glean your scattered sapience.'' 

I Then once more, 

"Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
_ " That on her bridal morn, before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
245 Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 
■ That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them ? Look ! for such are these and I." 
250 " Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd, " to whom, 
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well ? 
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap. 
And sobb'd and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 
255 Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. 

That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
Oh, by the bright head of my little niece. 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now ? " 
" You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 
260 " The mother of the sweetest little maid. 
That ever crow'd for kisses." 

"Out upon it!" 
She answer'd, " peace ! and why should I not play 



26 THE PRINCESS 

The Spartan Mother with emotion, be 
The Lncins Junius Brutus of my kind ? 

265 Him you call great : he for the common weal, 
The fading politics of mortal Eome, 
As I might slay this child, if good need were, 
Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 
The secular emancipation turns 

270 Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 
A prince, a brother ? a little will I yield. 
Best so, perchance, for us, and Avell for you. 
Oh hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 
My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 

275 Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 
You perish), as you came, to slip away 
To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said. 
These women were too barbarous, would not learn; 
They fled, who might have shamed us : promise all.'^ 

280 What could we else, we promised each ; and she, 
Like some wild creature newly caged, commenced 
A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian; holding out her lily arms. 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 

285 " I knew you at the first : tho' you have grown 
You scarce have alter'd : I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. I give thee to death, 
My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 

290 Our mother, is she well ? " 

With that she kiss'd 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 

295 And far allusion, till the gracious dews 



CANTO II 27 

Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
^^ I brought a message here from Lady Blanche/' 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
300 The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 

»A rosy blonde, and in a college gown 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's color), with her lips apart, 
305 And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes 
As bottom agates seem to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear mca-ning seas. 

I 

m So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
P Then Lady Psyche, " Ah — Melissa — you ! 
310 You heard us ? " And Melissa, '' Oh, pardon me ! 

reheard, I could not help it, did not wish : 

But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not. 

Nor think I bear that heart within my breast. 

To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 
315 '' I trust you," said the other, '' for we two 

Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine : 

But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 

Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 

The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear 
320 This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 

My honor, these their lives." ^^ Ah, fear me not," 

Eeplied Melissa ; ^^ no — I would not tell. 

No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, 

No, not to answer. Madam, all those hard things 
325 That Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 

" Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 

The new light up, and culminate in peace, 

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 

Said Cyril, "Madam, he the wisest man 



28 THE PRINCESS 

330 Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 

Of Lebanonian cedar : nor should you 

(Tho', Madam, you sliould answer, we would ask) 

Less welcome find among us if you came 

Among us, debtors for our lives to you, 
335 Myself for something more.'^ He said not what. 

But, " Thanks,'' she answered, " Go : we have been too long 

Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 

They do so that affect abstraction here. 

Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
340 Your promise : all, I trust, may yet be well." 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child. 

And held her round the knees against his waist, 

And blew the swolFn cheek of a trumpeter. 

While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
345 Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 

And thus our conference closed. 

And then we strolPd 

For half the day thro' stately theaters 

Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 

The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
350 The circle rounded under female hands 

With flawless demonstration : followed then 

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 

With scraps of thundrous Epic lilted out 

By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
355 And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 

That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 

Sparkle for ever : then we dipt in all ^ 

That treats of whatsoever is, the state. 

The total chronicles of man, the mind, 
360 The morals, something of the frame, the rock. 

The. star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, 



CANTO II 29 

And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 

Till, like three horses that have broken fence, 
365 x\nd glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 

We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: 

'' Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 

^^They hunt old trails,'^ said Cyril, " very well; 

But when did woman ever yet invent ? '' 
370 " Ungracious ! '' answered Florian ; " have you learnt 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 

^The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ? '' 
'' Oh, trash,'^ he said, " but with a kernel in it. 
Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ? 
375 And learnt ? I l^earnt more from her in a flash, 

Than if m}^ brainpan were an empty hull. 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 
380 Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts. 

Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but oh ! 

With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy. 

The Head of all the golden-shafted firm. 

The long-limb' d lad that had a Psyche too ; 
385 He cleft me thro' the stomacher ; and now 

What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 

The substance or the shadow ? will it hold ? 

I have no sorcerer's malison on me, 

No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. I 
3^K) Flatter myself that always everywhere 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are castles shadows ? Three of them ? Is she 

The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat ? 
395 For dear are those three castles to niy wants, 

And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 

And two dear things are one of double worth, 



30 THE PRINCESS 

And much. I might have said, but that my zone 
Unmann'd me : then the Doctors ! Oh, to hear 

400 The Doctors ! Oh, to watch the thirsty plants 
Imbibing ! Once or twice I thought to roar, 
To break my chain, to shake my mane : but thou 
Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry ! 
Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 

405 Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 
Star-sisters answering under crescent brows ; 
Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 
A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 
Where they like swallows coming out of time 

410 Will wonder why they came : but hark, the bell 
For dinner, let us go ! " 

And in w^e streamed 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair 

415 In colours gayer than the morning mist. 
The long hall glitter'd like a bed of flowers. 
How might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 

420 The second-sight of some Astraean age, 

Sat compass'd with professors ! they, the while, 
Discuss'd a doubt and tost it to and fro : 
A clamour thicken'd, mixt with inmost terms 
Of art and science : Lady Blanche alone 

425 Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments. 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 

430 One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 
In this hand held a volume as to read, 



CANTO II 31 

And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 

Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 

Or under arches of the marble bridge 
435 Hung, shadowed from the heat : some hid and sought 

In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 

Above the fountain jets and back again, 

With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 

Of the older sort, and murmur' d that their May 
440 Was passing : what was learning unto them ? 

They wished to marry ; they could rule a house ; 

Men hated learned women : but we three 

Sat muffled like the Fates ; and often came 

Melissa hitting a,ll we saw with shafts 
445 Of gentle satire, kin to charity. 

That harm'd not : then day droopt ; the chapel bells 

CalPd us : we left the walks ; we mixt with those 

Six hundred maidens clad in purest white. 

Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 
450 While the great organ almost burst his pipes. 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies. 

The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 
455 A blessing on her labours for the world. 



Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

AVind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go. 
Come from the dying moon, and blow, 
. Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Eest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon : 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 



32 




' Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 
Father will come to thee soon.' 



CANTO III 

Morn in the white wake of the morning star 

Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 

We rose, and each by other drest with care 

Descended to the court that lay three parts 
5 In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touched 

Above the darkness from their native East. 

There while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 

Or seem'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 

Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 
10 Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 

The circled Iris of a night of tears ; 

"And fly,'' she cried, "oh, fly while yet you may! 

My mother knows : " and when I ask'd her " How ? " 

" My fault," she wept, " my fault ! and yet not mine ; 
15 Yet mine in part. Oh, hear me, pardon me ! 

My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 

To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 

She says the Princess should have been the Head, 

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; 
20 And so it was agreed when first they came ; 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 

And she the left, or not, or seklom used ; 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 
25 Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 

^ Who ever saw such wild barbarians ? 

Girls ? — more like men ! ' and at these words the snake, 

33 



34 THE PRINCESS 

My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast ; 
And oh, Sirs, could I help it, but my cheek 

30 Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 
To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd : 
^0 marvelously modest maiden, you ! 
Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been men, 
You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus 

35 For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am ashamed 
That I must needs repeat for my excuse 
What looks so little graceful : ' men ' (for still 
My mother went revolving on the word), 
' And so they are, — very like men indeed — 

40 And with that woman closeted for hours ! ' 
Then came these dreadful words out one by one, 
^Why — these — are — men': I shudder'd: ^and you know it.' 
' Oh, ask me nothing,' I said : ' And she knows too. 
And she conceals it.' So my mother clutch'd 

45 The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess : Lady Psyche will be crush'd ; 
But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly : 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 

50 " What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush ? " 

Said Cyril : " Pale one, blush again : than wear 

Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 

Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven," 

He added, " lest some classic Angel speak 
55 In scorn of us, ^ They mounted, Ganymedes, v 

To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn.' 

But I will melt this marble into wax 

To yield us farther furlough : " and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
60 He scarce would prosper. " Tell us," Florian ask'd. 



CANTO III 36 

'^ How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.'^ 

" Oh, long ago/' she said, " betwixt these two 

Division smolders hidden ; 'tis my mother, 

Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
65 Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 

I never knew my father, but she says 

(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 

And still she raiPd against the state of things. 

She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
70 And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 

But when your sister came, she won the heart 

Of Ida : they were still together, grew 

(For so they said themselves) inosculated ; 

Consonant chords that shiver to one note ; 
75 One mind in all things : yet my mother still 

Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories. 

And angled with them for her pupil's love : 

She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 

But I must go : I dare not tarry," and, light 
80 As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 

Then murmur'd Florian gazing after her, 

" An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 

If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 

Her blushing was, and now she blush'd again 
85 As if to close with Cyril's random wish : 

Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride. 

Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 

^' The crane," I said, " may chatter of the crane, 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
90 An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 
My princess, my princess ! true she errs. 
But in her own grand way : being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of men, 
She sees herself in every woman else, 



36 THE PKINCESS 

95 And so she wears her error like a crown 
To blind the truth and me : for her, and her, 
Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix 
The nectar ; but — ah she — whene'er she moves, 
The Samian Here rises, and she speaks — 

100 A Memnon smitten with the morning Sun.'' 

So saying, from the court we paced, and gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the Northern front, 
And, leaning there on those balusters, high 
Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale 

105 That, blown about the foliage underneath. 
And sated with the innumerable rose. 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning, " hard task," he cried ; 
" No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 

110 Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. 
Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down. 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd ; found her there 

115 At point to move, and settled in her eyes 
The green malignant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well oil'd 
As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment : she demanded who we were, 

120 And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair. 
But, your example pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. 
She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 

125 I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 

And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves 
With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 
But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 



CANTO III 37 

The woman's cause. ^Kot more than now/ she said, 
130 ' So puddled as it is with favouritism.' 

I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 

Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew : 

Her answer was ^ Leave me to deal with that.' 

I spoke of war to come and many deaths ; 
135 And she replied, her duty was to speak. 

And duty duty, clear of consequences. 

I grew discouraged. Sir ; but since I knew 

No rock so hard but that a little wave 

May beat admission in a thousand years, 
140 I recommenced ; ' Decide not ere you pause. 

I find you here but in the second place. 

Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 

I offer boldly : we will seat you highest : 

Wink at our advent : help my prince to gain 
145 His rightful bride, and here I promise you 

Some palace in our land where you shall reign 

The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 

And your great name flow on with broadening time 

For ever.' Well, she balanced this a little, 
150 And told me she would answer us to-day, 

Meantime be mute : thus much, nor more I gain'd." 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
'' That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The dip of certain strata to the North. 
155 Would we go with her ? we shoukl find the land 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder : " then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 

1()0 Agreed to this, the day fled on thro' all 
Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 



38 THE PRINCESS 

Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head, 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 

165 Of those tame leopards. Kitten-like he roll'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house : 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 

170 Her gay-f urr'd cats a painted fantasy, 
Her college and her maidens empty masks. 
And I myself the shadow of a dream. 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe ; 

175 Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 
Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 
That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 
My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 
Went forth in long retinue following up 

180 The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 

I rode beside her, and to me she said : 
^^0 friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake.'' ^^No — not to her,'' 
185 I answer'd, " but to one of whom we spake 

Your Highness might have seem'd the thing you say." 
" Again ? " she cried, " are you ambassadresses 
From him to me ? we give you, being strange, 
A license : speak, and let the topic die." 

190 I stammer'd that I knew him — could have wish'd — 
" Our king expects — was there no precontract ? 
There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 



CANTO III 39 

195 To follow: snrely, if your Highness keep 

Your purport, you will shock him ev'ii to death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair." 

" Poor boy/' she said, " can he not read — no books ? 

Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
200 Which men delight in, martial exercise ? 

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 

Methinks he seems no better than a girl ; 

As girls were once, as we ourself have been : 

We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them : 
205 We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 

Being other — since we learnt our meaning here, 

To lift the woman's falFn divinity 

Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, 
210 " And as to precontracts, we move, my friend. 
At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 

Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summoned out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 

215 '' Alas, your Highness breathes full East," I said, 
" On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 

1 prize his truth : and then how vast a work 
To assail this gray preeminence of man ! 
You grant me license ; might I use it? think; 

220 Ere half be done, perchance your life may fail ; 

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 

And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 

Ma.y only make that footprint upon sand 

Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
225 Kesmooth to nothing : might I dread that you, 



40 THE PRINCESS 

With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds 
Eor issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness ? '' 

And she exclaim'dp 

230 ^' Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild ! 
What ! tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice ? 
You are bold indeed : we are not talk'd to thus : 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 

235 Like field flowers everywhere ! we like them well : 
But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 

240 Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 
Oh, — children — there is nothing upon earth 
More miserable than she that has a son. 
And sees him err : nor would we work for fame ; 

245 Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 
Who learns the one irov Grra) whence after-hands 
May move the world, tho' she herself effect 
But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 
For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

250 By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been. 
In lieu of many mortal flies, a race 
Of giants living, each, a thousand years. 
That we might see our own work out, and watch 
The sandy footprint harden into stone ! " 

255 I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
If that strange Poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out, interpreting my thoughts : 



CANTO III 41 

" No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; 
260 We are used to that : for women, up till this 

Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, 

Dwarfs of the gynseceum, fail so far 

In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 

How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
265 If we, could give them surer, quicker proof — 

Oh, if our end were less achievable 

By slow approaches than by single act 

Of immolation, any phase of death. 

We were as prompt to spring against the pikes 
270 Or down the fiery gulf as talk of it. 

To compass our dear sisters' liberties." 

She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
^o plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 

275 A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods. 
And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed aivhile and said, 
" As these rude bones to us, are we to her 

280 That will be." " Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 
" Which wrought us, as the workman and his Avork, 
That practice betters ? " " How," she cried, " you love 
The metaphysics ! read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 

285 Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 

Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
For there are schools for all." " And yet," I said, 
" Methinks I have not found among them all 

200 One anatomic." " Nay, we thought of that," 
She answer'd, '^ but it pleased us not : in truth 
We shudjder but to dream our maids should ape 



42 THE PKINCESS 

Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, 
And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 

295 Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 
And holy secrets of this microcosm, 
Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 
Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know 
Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs . 

300 Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, 
For many weary moons before we came, 
This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 
Would tend upon you. To your question now, 

305 Which touches on the workman and his work. 
Let there be light and there was light : ^tis so : 
For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 
And all creation is one act at once. 
The birth of light : but we that are not all, 

310 As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that. 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 
One act a phantom of succession : thus 
Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; 
But in the shadow will we work, and mold 

315 The woman to the fuller day.'' She spake. 
With kindled eyes : we rode a league beyond. 
And, o'er a bridge of pine wood crossing, came 
On flowery levels underneath the crag, 
Full of all beauty. " Oh, how sweet," I said 

320 (For I was half -oblivious of my mask), 

" To linger here with one that loved us." " Yea," 
She answer'd, " or with fair philosophies 
That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 
Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns, 

325 Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 

The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers 
' Built to the Sun : " then, turning to her maids, 



CANTO III 43 

" Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 

Lay out the viands/^ At the word, they raised 
330 A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 

With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood, 

Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, 

The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer'd there 

The bearded victor of ten thousand hymns, 
335 And all the men mourn'd at his side : but we 

Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 

With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I 

With mine affianced. Many a little hand 

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 
340 Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 

In the dark crag : and then we turn'd, we wound 

About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 

Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
345 Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 

Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all 

The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The spendour falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story : 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow ; set the wild echoes flying ; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying ! 

Oh hark, oh hear ! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
Oh sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying ! 

love ! they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river: 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul. 
And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow; set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying ! 



44 




i^low, biri^lc, blow ; set the wild echoes flyiiiff-' 



CANTO IV 

" There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound/' 
Said Ida ; " let us down and rest ; '' and we 
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 

5 By every coppice-feather'd chasm and cleft, 
Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below 
No bigger than a glowworm shone the tent 
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she lean'd on me, 
Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand, 

10 And blissful palpitations in the blood. 
Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. 
But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the satin dome and enter'd in. 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 

15 Our elbows : on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. 

Then she, " Let some one sing to us : lightlier move 
The minutes fledged with music ; " and a maid, 
20 Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 

'* Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the deptli of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to tlie eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn lields, 
25 And thinking of the days tliat are no more. 

46 



46 THE PRINCESS 

" Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld ; 
Sad as the last, which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
30 So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

'' Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
32 So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

" Dear as remember' d kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign' d 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
4Q O Death in Life, the days that are no more ! " 

She ended with such passion that the tear, 
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain 
Answered the Princess, " If indeed there haunt 

45 About the niolder'd lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men. 
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool 
And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 

50 Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be. 
While down the streams that float us each and all 
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice. 
Throne after throne, and, molten on the waste, 

55 Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, 
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end 
Found golden : let the past be past ; let be 
Their cancel'd Babels : tho' the rough kex break 

60 The starr'd mosaic, and the beard-blown goat 



CANTO IV 47 

Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig tree split 
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 
A trumpet in the distance pealing news 
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns 
65 Above the unrisen morrow : '^ then to me ; 

"Know you no song of your own land,'' she said, 
" Not such as moans about the retrospect. 
But deals with the other distance and the hues 
Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine." 

70 Then I remember'd one myself had made. 
What time I watch'd the swallow winging south 
From mine own |and, part made long since, and part 
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing : — 

75 ^ *'0 Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 

Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee ! 

" Oh tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each. 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
80 And dark and true and tender is the North. 

'' Swallow, Swallow ! if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill. 
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. 

" Oh, were I thou that she might take me in, 
85 And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 

Would rock the snowy cradle till I died! 

" Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ? 

90 *'0h tell her. Swallow, that thy brood is llown : 

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since mv nest is made. 



48 THE PRINCESS 

" Oh tell her, brief is life but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
95 And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

" O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee ! " 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
100 Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time, 

Stared with great eyes, and laughYl with alien lips, 

And knew not what they meant ; for still my voice 

Rang false : but smiling, " Not for thee," she said, 

*' Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan 
105 Shall burst her veil : marsh-divers, rather, maid. 

Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow crake 

Grate her harsh kindred in the grass : and this 

A mere love poem! Oh, for such, my friend. 

We hold them slight : they mind us of the time 
110 When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men. 

That lute and flute fantastic tenderness. 

And dress the victim to the offering up. 

And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 

And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
115 Poor soul ! I had a maid of honour once ; 

She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 

A rogue of canzonets and serenades. 

I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. 

So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song 
120 Used to great ends : our self have often tried 

Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 

The passion of the prophetess ; for song 

Is duer unto freedom, force, and growth 

Of spirit than to junketing and love. 
125 Love is it ? Would this same mock-love, and this 

Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats. 



1 



CANTO IV 49 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 
Kot vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 
To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 
130 Whole in ourselves and owed to none ! Enough ! 
But now to leaven play with profit, you. 
Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, 
That gives the manners of your countrywomen ?'' 

She spoke, and turned her sumptuous head with eyes 
135 Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 

Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 

Cyril, with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had wrought, 

Or mastered by the sense of sport, began 

To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
140 Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 

JJnmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 

I frowning ; Psyche flushed and wann'd and shook ; 

The lilylike Melissa droop'd her brows ; 

'' Forbear,'' the Princess cried ; " Forbear, Sir,'' I ; 
145 And, heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 

I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; 

There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 

Melissa clamour'd ^^ Flee the death".; ^^To horse," 

Said Ida; ^^home! to horse!" and fled, as flies 
150 A troop of snowy doves athwai't the dusk 

When some one batters at the dovecote doors, 

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 

With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart, 

In the pavilion : there like parting hopes 
155 I heard them passing from me : hoof by hoof, 

And every hoof a knell to my desires, 

Clang'd on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 

" The Head, the Head, the Princess, the Head ! " 

For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and rolTd 
ir)0 In the river. Out 1 sprang from glow to gU)om : 



50 THE PRINCESS 

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossomed branch 

Eapt to the horrible fall ; a glance I gave, 

No more ; bnt, woman-vested as I was, 

Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then 

165 Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 

The weight of all the hopes of half the world, 
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 
Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 
To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 

170 Mid-channel. Eight on this we drove and caught^ 
And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 

There stood her maidens glimmeringly group'd 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms ; they cried " she lives '^ : 

175 They bore her back into the tent : but I, 

So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 

180 Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues. Art 
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves 

185 Of open-work in which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns, 
190 Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks. 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, 
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheel'd 



CANTO IV 51 

195 Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 

A step 

Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 

Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 

Disturbed me with the doubt ^^if this were she," 

But it was Florian. " Hist, oh hist ! " he said, 
200 " They seek us : out so late is out of rules. 

Moreover ' seize the strangers ' is the cry. 

How came you here ? " I told him : " I," said he, 

" Last of the train, a moral leper, I, 

To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned. 
205 Arriving all confused among the rest. 

With hooded brows I crept into the hall. 

And, couch'd behind a Judith, underneath 

The head of Holof ernes peep'd and saw. 
jGrirl after girl was calPd to trial : each 
210 Disclaimed all knowledge of us : last of all, 

Melissa : trust me. Sir, I pitied her. 

She, questioned if she knew us men, at first 

Was silent ; closer prest, denied it not : 

And then, demanded if her mother knew, 
215 Or Psyche, she affirm'd not, or denied : 

From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, 

Easily gathered either guilt. She sent 

For Psyche, but she was not there ; she calPd 

For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; 
220 She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 

And I slipt out : but whither will you now ? 

And where are Psyche, Cyril ? both are fled : 

What, if together ? that were not so well. 

Would rather we had never come ! I dread 
225 His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

" And yet," I said, " you wrong him more tlian I 
That struck him : this is proper to the clown, 



52 THE PRINCESS 

Tho' smock'd, or furr'd and purpPd, still the clown, 
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 

230 That which he says he loves : for Cyril, howe'er 
He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse, and sinn'd in grosser lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he. 

235 He has a solid base of temperament: 
But as the water lily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchored to the bottom, such is he/' 

Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
240 Two proctors leapt upon us, crying, " Names '^ : 
He, standing still, was clutch'd ; but I began 
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 
And double in and out the boles, and race 
By all the fountains : fleet I Avas of foot : 
245 Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 
I heard the puff'd pursuer ; at mine ear 
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 
And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 
At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine, 
250 That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne, 

And falling on my face was caught and known. 

They haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall : above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 

255 Burn like the mystic fire on a masthead. 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her, combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river ; and close behind her stood 
Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men, 

260 Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 



CANTO IV 53 

And labour. Each was like a Druid rock ; 

Or like a spire of land that stands apart 

Cleft from the main, and waiPd about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove 
265 An advent to the throne : and therebeside, 

Half-naked as if caught at once from bed 

And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 

The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 

Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 
270 Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, 

Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 

Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

" It was not thus, Princess, in old days : 
^ You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips : 
275 I led you then to all the Castalies ; 

I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 

I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 

Your second mother : those were gracious times. 

Then came your new friend : you began to change — 
280 I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 

Till, taken with her seeming openness, 

You turn'd your warmer currents all to her. 

To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 

Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, 
285 And partly that I hoped to win you back. 

And partly conscious of my own deserts, 

And partly that you were my civil head, 

And chiefly you were born for something great, 

In which I might your fellow-worker be, 
290 When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 

Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 

In us true growth, in her a tJonah's gourd, 

Up in one night, and due to sudden sun : 



54 THE PRINCESS 

We took this palace ; but even from the first 

295 You stood in your own light, and darkened mine. 
What student came but that you planed her path 
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 
A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 
I your old friend and tried, she new in all ? 

300 But still her lists were swelFd, and mine were lean ; 
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 
Then came these wolves : they knew her : they endured, 
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, 
To tell her what they were, and she to hear : 

305 And me none told : not less to an eye like mine, 
A lidless watcher of the public weal. 
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot 
Was to you : but I thought again : I fear'd 
To meet a cold ' We thank you, we shall hear of it 

310 From Lady Psyche ' : you had gone to her. 
She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 
No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us 
Li our young nursery still unknown, the stem 
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat 

315 Were all miscounted as malignant haste 
To push my rival out of place and power. 
But public use required she should be known ; 
And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 
I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 

320 I spoke not then at first, but watch'd them well. 
Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 
And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 
I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 
Eidd'n to the hills, she likewise : now, I thought, 

325 That surely she will speak ; if not, then I. 

Did she ? These monsters blazon'd what they were. 

According to the coarseness of their kind, 

For thus I hear ; and known at last (my work). 



CANTO IV 55 

And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 
330 I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies ; 
And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 
I, that have lent my life to build up yours, 
I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time. 
And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast : 
335 Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan. 
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 
For every gust of chance, and men will say 
We did not know the real light, but chased 
The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." 

340 She ceased : the Princess answer'd coldly, ^' Good : 
Your oath is broken : we dismiss you : go. 
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child), 
Our mind is changed : we take it to ourself ." 

Thereat the Lady stretch'd a vulture throat, 
345 And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 

" The plan was mine. I built the nest,'' she said, 

" To hatch the cuckoo. Kise ! '' and stoop'd to updrag 

Melissa : she, half on her mother propt. 

Half-drooping from her, turn'd her face, and cast 
350 A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer 

Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung, 

A Niobean daughter, one arm out, 

Appealing to the bolts of Heaven ; and while 

We gazed upon her came a little stir 
355 About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 

Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, 

A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear 

Stared in her eyes, and chalk'd her face, and wing'd 

Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell 
3^>o Delivering seaPd dispatches which the Head 

Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood 



56 THE PRINCESS 

Tore open, silent we with, blind surmise 

Eegarding, while she read, till over brow 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom, 

365 As of some tire against a stormy cloud 

When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick 
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; 
For anger most it seem'd, while now her breast. 
Beaten with some great passion at her heart, 

370 Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 
In the dead hush the papers that she held 
Rustle : at once the lost lamb at her feet 
Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; 
The plaintive cry jarr'd on her ire ; she crushed 

375 The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her. 
She whirPd them on to me, as who should say 
" Read,'' and I read — two letters — one her sire's. 

" Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way 
380 We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 
We, conscious of what temper you are built, 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who has this night. 
You lying close upon his territory, 
385 Slipt round and in the dark invested you. 
And here he keeps me hostage for his son." 

The second was my father's, running thus : 
'' You have our son : touch not a hair of his head : 
Render him up unscathed : give him your hand : 
390 Cleave to your contract : tho' indeed we hear 
You hold the woman is the better man ; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women kick against their Lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 



CANTO IV 67 

395 That we this night should pluck your palace down ; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

" Oh, not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
400 But led by golden wishes and a hope. 

The child of regal compact, did I break 

Your precinct ; not a scorner of your sex. 

But venerator, zealous it should be 

All that it might be : hear me, for I bear, 
405 Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs. 

From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 

Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you; 

I babbled for you, as babies for the moon. 

Vague brightness ; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 
410 From all high places, lived in all fair lights. 

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost South 

And blown to inmost North ; at eve and dawn 

With Ida, Ida, Ida rang the woods ; 

The leader wildswan in among the stars 
415 Would clang it, and, lapt in wreaths of glowworm light. 

The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 

Because I would have reached you, had you been 

Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 

Persephone in Hades, now at length, 
420 Those winters of abeyance all w^orn out, 

A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 

Not in this frequence can T lend full tongue, 

noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 

On you, their center : let me say but this, 
425 That many a famous man and woman, town 

And landskip, have I heard of, after seen 

The dwarfs of presage : tho' when known, there grew 



68 THE PRINCESS 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

Made them worth knowing ; but in you I found 

430 My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 
And mastered, while that after-beauty makes 
Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, 
Within me, that except you slay me here, 
According to your bitter statute book, 

435 I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 
The seal does music ; who desire you more 
Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips, 
With many thousand matters left to do. 
The breath of life ; oh, more than poor men wealth, 

440 Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but half 
Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves. 
You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar 
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold 
That it becomes no man to nurse despair, 

445 But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 
Yet that I came not all unauthorized 

Behold your father's letter.'' 

On one knee 
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dash'd 

450 Unopen'd at her feet : a tide of fierce 
Invective seemed to wait behind her lips. 
As waits a river level with the dam 
Eeady to burst and flood the world with foam : 
And so she would have spoken, but there rose ^ 

455 A hubbub in the court of half the maids 
Gathered together : from the illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press 
Of snoAvy shoulders, thick as herded ewes. 
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes, 

460 And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 



CANTO IV 59 

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, 
All open-mouth'd, all gazing to the light. 
Some crying there was an army in the land. 
And some that men were in the very walls, 
465 And some they cared not ; till a clamour grew 
As of a new-world Babel, a woman-built 
And worse-confounded : high above them stood 
The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

Not peace she look'd, the Head : but, rising up 
470 Eobed in the long night of her deep hair, so 

To the open window moved, remaining there 

Fixt like a beacon tower above the waves 

Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye 

Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
475 Dash themselves dead. She stretch'd her arms and call'd 

Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. 

" What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head ? 
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks : I dare 
All these male thunderbolts : what is it ye fear ? 

4s6 Peace ! there are those to avenge us, and they come : 
If not, — myself were like enough, girls. 
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights. 
And, clad in iron, burst the ranks of war, 
Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, 

485 Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear; 
Six thousand years of fear have made you that 
From which I would redeem you : but for those 
That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 
Your faces there in the crowd — to-morrow morn 

490 We hold a great convention : then shall they 
That love their voices more than duty learn 
With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 



60 THE PKTNCESS 

Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 
495 Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, 
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 
500 For ever slaves at home and fools abroad." 

She, ending, waved her hands : thereat the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved : then with a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 
When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
505 Of thunder shower, she floated to us and said : 

'' You have done well and like a gentleman. 
And like a prince : you have our thanks for all : 
And you look well too in your woman's dress : 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 

510 You saved our life : we owe you bitter thanks : 
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 

515 You would-be quenchers of the light to be. 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 
Oh would I had his scepter for one hour ! 
You that have dared to break our bound, and guU'd 
Our servants, wrong'd and lied and thwarted us — 

520 / wed with thee ! / bound by precontract 

Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
Tliat veins the world were pack'd to make your crown. 
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 

525 I trample on your offers and on you : 
Begone : we will not look upon you more. 



CANTO IV 61 

Here, push them out at gates." 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow 
Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed 
530 Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. 

535 We cross'd the street and gain'd a petty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt : 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts ; 

540 The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard. 
The jest and earnest working side by side. 
The cataract and the tumult and the kings 
W^ere shadows ; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been, 

545 And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Not long ; I shook it off ; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one 

550 To whom the touch of all mischance but came 
As night to him that sitting on a hill 
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 
Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 



Interlude 

Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands: 
A moment, while the trumpets blow. 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe. 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee 

So Lilia sang : we thought her half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; 
And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a dance to change 
The music — clapt her hands and cried for war. 
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end : 
And he that next inherited the tale. 
Half turning to the broken statue, said, 
" Sir Ealph has got your colours : if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me ? " 
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 
Lay by her like a model of her hand. 
She took it and she flung it. '^ Eight," she said, 
" And make us all we would be, great and good." 
He, knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 
A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the hall. 
Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince. 



62 




"A moment, while llic liumpcts blow, 
He sees his brood about thy knee." 



CANTO V 

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a stationary voice, 
And " Stand, who goes ? " " Two from the palace,'' I, 
" The second two : they wait," he said, '^ pass on ; 

5 His Highness wakes : " and one, that clashed in arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led, 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 

10 Whispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 
Dazed me half-blind : I stood and seem'd to hear. 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies. 
Each hissing in his neighbour's ear ; and then 

15 A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamouring etiquette to death. 
Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down. 
The fresh young captains flash'd their glittering teeth, 

20 The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 
And, slain with laughter, roll'd the gilded Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, 
Panted, from weary sides, ^* King, you are free ! 
We did but keep you surety for our son, 
25 If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou, 
That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge : " 

63 



64 THE PRINCESS 

For I was drench'cl with ooze, and torn with briers, 
]V[ore crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, 
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. 

30 Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 
A whisper'd jest to some one near him, " Look, 
He has been among his shadows." " Satan take 
The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
Roar'd). Make yourself a man to fight with men. 

35 Go : Cyril told us all.'' 

As boys that slink 
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye. 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded woman-slough 
To sheathing splendours and the golden scale 

40 Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the jSTorthern hills. Here Cyril met us. 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 

45 For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
FoUow'd his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping : '^ then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and, there she lies, 

50 But will not speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 
A stone-shot off : we enter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accouterments, 
Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak. 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 

55 And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal, 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
And at her head a follower of the camp, 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood. 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 



CANTO V 65 

60 Then Florian knelt, and " Come '' he whispered to her, 
" Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus. 
What have you done but right ? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince: look up : be comforted: 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought, 

05 When falPn in darker ways." And likewise I: 
" Be comforted : have I not lost her too, 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me ? " She heard, she moved. 
She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat, 

70 And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 
In deathless mafble. " Her," she said, '^ my friend — 
Parted from her — betray'd her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe ? why kept ye not your faith ? 

75 ph, base and bad ! what comfort ? none for me ! " 
To whom remorseful Cyril, '^ Yet I pray 
Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child ! " 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried. 

" Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, m}^ child, 
80 My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! 

For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; 

And either she will die from want of care, 

Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 

The child is hers — for every little fault, 
85 The child is hers ; and they will beat my girl 

Eemembering her mother : my flower ! 

Or they will take her, they will make her liard, 

And she will pass me by in after-life 

With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 
fK) 111 mother that I was to leave her there, 

To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 

The horror of the shame among them all : 

But I will go and sit beside the doors, 



66 THE PRINCESS 

And make a wild petition night and day, 

95 Until they hate to hear me like a wind 
Wailing for ever^ till they open to me, 
And lay my little blossom at my feet, 
My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child: 
And I will take her up and go my Way, 

100 And satisfy my soul with kissing her : 

Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me 
Who gave me back my child ? ^' ^^ Be comforted,'' 
Said Cyril, " you shall have it : '' but again 
She veiPd her brows, and prone she sank, and so 

105 Like tender things that being caught feign death, 
Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp, and inward raced the scouts 
W^ith rumour of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 

110 Found the gray kings at parle : and, '^ Look you," cried 
My father, " that our compact be f ulfill'd : 
You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at you and man : 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fi re ; 

115 She yields, or war." 

Then Gama turn'd to me : 
" We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl ; and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large : 
How say you, war or not ? " 

" Not war, if possible, 

120 king," I said, " lest from the abuse of war. 
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. 
The smoldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel - — all the common wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 

125 Three times a monster : now she lightens scorn 



CANTO V 67 

At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 

(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 

And every face she look'd on justify it) 

The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
130 By gentleness than war. I want her love. 

What were I nigher this altho' we dash'd 

Your cities into shards with catapults, 

She would not love ; — or brought her chained, a slave. 

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 
135 Not ever would she love ; but, brooding, turn 

The book of scorn till all my flitting chance 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs. 

And crush'd to death : and rather. Sire, than this 

I would the old God of war himself were dead, 
140 Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 

jotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck. 

Or like an old-world mammoth bulk'd in ice, 

Not to be molten out.'' 

And roughly spake 

My father, " Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
145 Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 

That idiot legend credible. Look you. Sir ! 

Man is the hunter ; woman is his game : 

The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 

We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; 
150 They love us for it, and we ride them down. 

Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame ! 

Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 

As he that does the thing they dare not do. 

Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 
155 With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 

Among the women, snares them by the score 

Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd with death 

He reddens what he kisses : thus 1 won 

Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 



68 THE PRINCESS 

160 Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 
To such as her ! if Cyril sjjake her true, 
To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 
To trip a tigress with a gossamer, 
Were wisdom to it.'' 

'^ Yea, but Sire," I cried, 

165 " Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier ? ISTo : 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier ? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes. 
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down 

170 Gagelike to man, and had not shunn'd the death, 
No, not the soldier's : yel; I hold her, king. 
True woman : but you clash them all in one. 
They have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 

175 As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty. 
Glorifying clown and satyr ; whence they need 

180 More breadth of culture : is not Ida right ? 
They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 
Severer in the logic of a life ? 
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 
Of earth and heaven ? and she of whom you speak, 

185 My mother, looks as whole as some serene 
Creation minted in the golden moods 
Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, a touch. 
But pure as lines of green that streak the white 
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 

190 Not like the piebald miscellany, man. 

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire. 
But whole and one : and, take them all-in-all, 
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind. 



CANTO V 69 

As truthful, much that Ida claims as right 

195 Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 
As dues of Nature. To our point : not war : 
Lest I lose all.'' 

" Nay, nay, you spake but sense/' 
Said Gama. " We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 

200 This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 
You talk almost like Ida : she can talk ; 
And there is something in it as you say : 
But you talk kindlier : we esteem you for it. — 
He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 

205 I would he had our daughter : for the rest, 
Our own detention, why, the causes weigh'd. 
Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 
We would do much to gratify your Prince — 
We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 

210 Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land. 
You did but come as goblins in the night. 
Nor in the furrow broke the plowman's head. 
Nor burnt the grange, nor buss'd the milking-maid, 
Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream : 

215 But let .your Prince (our royal word upon it. 
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines. 
And speak Avith Arac : Arac's word is thrice 
As ours with Ida: something may be done — 
I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 

220 You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 

Follow us : who knows ? we four may build some 

plan 
Foursquare to opposition." 

Here he reached 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growPd 
An answer which, half-muitted in his beard, 

225 Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 



70 THE PRINCESS 

Then- rode we with the old king across the lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke 

230 Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 

In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode, 
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gathered by night and peace, with each light air 

235 On our mail'd heads : but other thoughts than peace 
Burnt in us when we saw the embattled squares. 
And squadrons of the Prince trampling the flowers 
With clamour : for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king ; they made a halt ; 

240 The horses yelPd ; they clash'd their arms ; the drum 
Beat ; merrily-blowing shrill'd the martial fife ; 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner : anon to meet us lightly pranced 

245 Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 

Such thews of men : the midmost and the highest 

Was Arac : all about his motion clung 

The shadow of his sister, as the beam 

Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 

250 Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone. 
That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 
And as the flery Sirius alters hue, 
And bickers into red and emerald, shone 
Their morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 

255 And I that prated peace, when first I heard . 
War-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force. 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man, 
Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand, 



CANTO V 71 

260 And now a pointed finger, told them all : 

A common light of smiles at our disguise 

Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 

Had laboured down within his ample lungs, 

The genial giant, Arac, roU'd himself 
265 Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

^^ Our land invaded, 's death ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war : 
And, 's death ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 
But then this question of your troth remains : 

270 And there's a downright honest meaning in her; 
She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fairplay for her scheme ; 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself. 
What know I of these things ? but, life and soul ! 

275 I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; 
I say she flies too high, 's death ! what of that ? 
I take her for the flower of womankind, 
And so I often told her, right or wrong. 
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves, 

280 And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all, 
I stand upon her side : she made me swear it — 
'S death — and with solemn rites by candle-light — 
Swear by St. something — I forget her name — 
Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 

285 She was a princess too ; and so I swore. 

Come, this is all ; she will not : waive your claim : 
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once 
Decides it, 's death ! against luy father's will.'' 

I lagg'd in answer, loth to render up 
290 My precontract, and loth by brainless war 
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 
Till one of those two brothers, half aside 



72 THE PRINCESS 

And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat, " Like to like ! 

295 The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.'' 
A taunt that clench' d his purpose like a blow ! 
For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, 
And sharp I answer'd, touch'd upon the point 
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 

300 " Decide it here : why not ? we are three to three." 

Then spake the third, " But three to three ? no more ? 
No more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honour : every captain waits 
Hungry for honour, angry for his king. 

305 More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die." 
^^ Yea," answer'd I, "for this wild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 

310 Foam of men's deeds — this honour, if ye will. 
It needs must be for honour if at all : 
Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fail. 
And if we win, we fail : she would not keep 
Her compact." " 'S death ! but we will send to her," 

315 Said Arac, " worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue : let our missive thro', 
And you shall have her answer by the word." 

" Boys ! " shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen 

To her false daughters in the pool ; for none 
320 Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say : 

Back rode we to my father's camp, and found 

He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 

To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim. 

Or by denial flush her babbling wells 
325 With her own people's life : three times he went : 



CANTO V 73 

The first, he blew and blew, but none appeared : 
He batter'd at the doors ; none came : the next, 
An awful voice within had warn'd him thence : 
The third, and those eight daughters of the plow 

330 Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair. 
And so belaboured him on rib and cheek 
They made him wild : not less one glance he caught 
Thro' open doors of Ida stationed there 
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 

335 Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 
Of arms ; and standing like a stately pine 
Set in a cataract on an island-crag. 
When storm is on the heights, and right and left 
Suck'd from the dark heart of the long hills roll 

340 The torrents, dash'd to the vale : and yet her will 
Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 
His iron palms together with a cry ; 

345 Himself would till it out among the lads : 
But overborne by all his bearded lords 
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur : 
And many a bold knight started up in heat, 

3,50 And sware to combat for my claim till death. 

All on this side the palace ran the fiekl 
Flat to the garden-wall : and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
A column'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
365 And great bronze valves, emboss'd with Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 
All that long morn the lists were hammer'd up, 



74 THE PRINCESS 

And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
360 With message and defiance, went and came ; 
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand. 
But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

" brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
365 What heats of indignation when we heard 

Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 

Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 

Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; 

Of living hearts that crack within the fire 
370 Where smolder their dead despots ; and of those, — 

Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling 

Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 

The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 

Made for all noble motion : and I saw 
375 That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 

With smoother men : the old leaven leaven'd all : 

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 

No woman named : therefore I set my face 

Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 
380 Far off from men I built a fold for them : 

I stored it fvdl of rich memorial : 

I fenced it round with gallant institutes. 

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey ; 

And prospered till a rout of saucy boys 
385 Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what ^ 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

SeaPd not the bond — the striplings ! — for their sport ! — 
390 I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these ? 

Or you ? or I ? for since you think me touch'd 

In honour — what, I would not aught of false — 



CANTO V 75 

Is not our cause pure ? And whereas I know 
Yoar prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 

395 You draw f rom, fight ; you failing, I abide 
What end soever : fail you will not. Still 
Take not his life : he risk'd it for my own ; 
His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do, 
Fight, and fight well ; strike, and strike home. Q 
dear 

400 Brothers ! the woman's Angel guards you, you 
The sole men to be mingled with our cause. 
The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime, 
Your very armour hallow'd, and your statues 
Eear'd, sung to, ^yhen, this gadfly brush'd aside, 

405 We plant a solid foot into the Time, 
And mold a generation strong to move 
With claim on claim from right to right, till she 
Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself ; 
And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 

410 And, ever following those two crowned twins. 
Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 
Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs 
Between the Northern and the Southern morn." 

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. 

415 " See that there be no traitors in your camp : 
We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 
Since our arms fail'd — this Egypt-plague of men! 
Almost o^ur maids were better at tlieir homes, 
Than thus man-girdled here : indeed I think 

420 Our chiefest comfort is the little child 
Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 
She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 
To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 
I took it for an hour in mine own bed 

425 This morning : there the tender orphan hands 



76 THE PRINCESS 

Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 
The wrath I nursed against the world : farewell/^ 

I ceased ; he said, '' Stubborn, but she may sit 
Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 

430 And breed up warriors ! See now, tho' yourself 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling king. 
This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, 

435 And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 
Man for the field, and woman for the hearth : 
Man for the sword, and for the needle she : 
Man with the head, and woman with the heart : 

440 Man to command, and woman to obey ; 

All else confusion. Look you ! the gray mare 
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell 

445 Mix with his hearth : but you — she's yet a colt — 
Take, break her : strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd 
She might not rank with those detestable 
That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl 
Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. 

450 They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance : 
/ like her none the less for rating at her ! 
Besides, the woman wed is not as we. 
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, 

455 The bearing and the training of a child 
Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king : 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 



CANTO V 77 

I pored upon her letter which I held, 

And on the little clause " take not his life " : 

460 I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 
And on the " Follow, follow, thou shalt win " : 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 
And how the strange betrothment was to end : 
Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer's curse — 

405 That one should fight with shadows, and should fall ; 
And like a flash the weird affection came : 
King, camp, and college turn'd to hollow shows; 
I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts. 
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 

470 To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 
And ere I woke it was the point of noon. 
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed, 
We enter'd in and waited, fifty there 
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 

475 At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 
The trumpet, and again : at which the storm 
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears 
And riders front to front, until they closed 

480 In conflict with the crash of shivering points. 
And thunder. Yet it seem'd a dream, I dream'd 
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. 
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

485 Part sat like rocks : part reePd but kept their seats : 
Part roll'd on the earth, and rose again and drew : 
Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down 
From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 

490 The large blows rainM, as here and everywhere 
He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 



78 THE PRINCESS 

And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — 
Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 
With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 

495 From Gama's dwarfish loins ? If this be so, 
The mother makes us most — and in my dream 
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. 
And highest, among the statues, statue-like, 

500 Between a cymbal'd Miriam and a Jael, 
AVith Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 
A single band of gold about her hair. 
Like a Saint's glory up in heaven : but she 
No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 

505 Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 
Yea, let her see me fall ! With that I drave 
Among the thickest and bore down a prince. 
And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream 
All that I would. But that large-molded man, 

510 His visage all agrin as at a wake. 

Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back 
With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 
As comes a pillar of electric cloud. 
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 

515 And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, 
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 
Eeels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 
Gave way before him : only Florian, he 

520 That loved me closer than his own right eye, ^ 

Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down : 
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 
With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough. 
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; 

525 But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 



CANTO V 79 

And threw him : last I spurr'd ; I felt my veins 
Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, 
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 
Till I struck out and shouted ; the blade glanced, 
530 I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 
Flow'd from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 



Home they brought her warrior dead : 
She nor swoon' d, nor utter' d cry : 

All her maidens, watching, said, 
" She must weep or she will die." 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 
Caird him worthy to be loved. 

Truest friend and noblest foe ; 
Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place. 
Lightly to the warri€r stept. 

Took the face-cloth from the face ; 
Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 
Set his child upon her knee — 

Like summer tempest came her tears - 
" Sweet my child, I live for thee." 



80 



CANTO VI 

My dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay ; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all 
5 So often that I speak of having seen. 
For so it seem'd, or so they said to me, 
That all things grew more tragic and more strange ; 
That when our side was vanquished, and my cause 
For ever lost, there went up a great cry, 
10 The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran 
In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 
And grovel' d on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
15 With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

"Our enemies have falPn, have fall'ii: the seed, 
The little seed they laugh' cl at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk 
20 Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 

A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they came ; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears : they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand : 
25 They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall, 

And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 
81 



82 THE PRINCESS 

*' Our enemies have falPn, have fall'n : they came, 
The woodmen with their axes : lo the tree ! 
But we will make it fagots for the hearth, 
30 And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 

And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n : they struck ; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
35 The glittering ax was broken in their arms, 

Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade. 

" Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power : and roll'd 
40 With music in the growing breeze of Time, 

The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

'' And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 

45 To break them more in tlieir behoof, whose arms 
Championed our cause and won it with a day 
Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, 

50 To rain an April of ovation round 

Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come. 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 

55 The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality.'^ 

She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms. 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
60 A hundred maids in train across the Park. 



CANTO VI 83 

Some cowPd, and some bare-headed, on they came, 
Their feet in flowers, her loveliest : by them went 
The enamour'd air sighing, and on their curls 
From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 

65 And over them the tremulous isles of light 
Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 
At distance followed : so they came : anon 
Thro' open field into the lists they wound 
Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 

70 That holds a stately fretwork to the Sun, 
And followed up by a hundred airy does, 
Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 
The lovely, lordly creature floated on 
To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stayed ; 

75 Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 
Their hands, and calPd them dear deliverers, 
And happy warriors, and immortal names. 
And said " You shall not lie in the tents but here, 
And nursed by those for whom you fought, and served 

80 With female hands and hospitality.'' 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance. 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye. 
Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, 

H5 Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale. 
Cold ev'n to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 
The haggard father's face and reverend beard 
Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 
Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 

^X) Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 
A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 
" He saved my life : my brother slew him for it." 
No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 
Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, 



84 THE PRINCESS 

95 And held them up : she saw them^ and a day 

Rose from the distance on her memory, 

When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 

With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 

And then once more she look'd at my pale face : 
100 Till understanding all the foolish work 

Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all. 

Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 

Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; 

She bow'd, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 
105 A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 

'' Sire," she said, " he lives : he is not dead : 

Oh, let me have him with my brethren here 

In our own palace : we will tend on him 

Like one of these ; if so, by any means, 
110 To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make 

Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said : but at the "happy word "he lives," 
My father stoop'd, re-father'd o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fallen life, 

115 With brow to brow like night and evening mixt 
Their dark and gray, while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede, 
Lay like a new-fall'n meteor on the grass, 

120 Uncared for, spied its mother and began 
A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook' d not, but clamouring out " Mine — mine — not yours, 

125 It is not yours, but mine : give me the child," 
Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth'd. 
And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 



CANTO VI 85 

With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
130 Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 

And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 

The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 

The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 

Nor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida heard, 
135 Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 

Erect and silent, striking with her glance 

The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 

Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 

Trail'd himself up on one knee ; then he drew 
140 Her robe to meet his lips, and down she looked 

At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it seem'd. 

Or self-involved; but when she learnt his face, 

Remembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 

Qnce more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 
145 Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 

When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said : 

'' fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 

That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! 

But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible 
150 And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks. 

We vanquish'd, you the Victor of your will. 

What would you more ? give her the child ! remain 

Orb'd in your isolation : he is dead. 

Or all as dead : henceforth we let you be : 
155 Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 

Lest, where you seek the common love of these, 

The common hate with the revolving wheel 

Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis 

Break from a darken'd future, crown'd with fire, 
IGO And tread you out for ever : but howsoe'er 

Fix'd -in yourself, never in your own arms 

To hold your own, deny not hers to her, 



86 THE PRINCESS 

Give her the child ! Oh if, I say, you keep 
One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved 

165 The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, 
Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer, 
Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. 
Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours, 
Or speak to her, your dearest, her one fault 

170 The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, 
Give me it : / will give it her.'^ 

He said : 
At first her eye with slow dilation rolPd 
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 

175 Full on the child ; she took it : " Pretty bud ! 
Lily of the vale ! half open'd bell of the woods ! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery, 

180 Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; 
These men are hard upon us as of old ; 
We two must part : and yet how fain was I 
To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 
I might be something to thee, when I felt 

185 Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 
In the dead prime : but may thy mother prove 
As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 
And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 
Gentle as freedom " — here she kiss'd it : then — 

190 " All good go with thee ! take it. Sir," and so 
Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands. 
Who turn'd half-round to Psyche as she sprang 
To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 
Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 

195 And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough. 
And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it. 



CANTO VI 87 

And hid her bosom with it ; after that 
Put on more calm and added suppliantly : 

" We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
200 For ever : find some other : as for me 

I scarce am fit for your great plans : yet speak to me, 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven/' 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac. " Ida — 's death ! you blame the man ; 
205 You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your warrio'r : I and mine have fought 
Your battle : kiss her ; take her hand, she weeps : 
'S death ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it." 

210 But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 
And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 

" I've heard that there is iron in the blood. 
And I believe it. Not one word ? not one ? 

215 Whence drew you this steel temper ? not from me. 
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
^ Our Ida has a heart ' — just ere she died — 
^ But see that some one with authority 

220 Be near her still ' and I — I sought for one — 
All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche : much profit ! Not one word ; 
No ! tho' your father sues : see how you stand 
Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maini'd, 

225 I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 

For your wild whim : and was it then for this, 
Was it for this we gave our palace up, 



88 THE PRINCESS 

Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 
And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 

230 And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 
Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? 
Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom, 
When first she came, all flushed you said to me 
Now had you got a friend of your own age, 

235 Now could you share your thought ; now should men 
see 
Two women faster welded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk'd with, she 
You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 

240 And right ascension, Heaven knows what ; and now 
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 
Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint ! 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay. 
You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one ? 

245 You will not ? well — no heart have yoa, or such 
As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." 
So said the small king moved beyond his wont. 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her force 

250 By many a varying influence and so long. 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept : 
Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still wa.ter : then brake out my sire, 

255 Lifting his grim head from my wounds. " you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
And were half fool'd to let you tend our son, 
Because he might have wish'd it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 

260 And think that you might mix his draught with death 



CANTO VI 89 

When your skies change again : the rougher hand 
Is safer : on to the tents : take up the Prince." 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimm'd her broke 
265 A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

" Come hither, 

Psyche ! " she cried out ; " embrace me, come, 
Quick while I melt; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour : 

270 Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 
Kiss and be friei:^ds, like children being chid ! 
/ seem no more : / want forgiveness too : 

1 should have had to do with none but maids. 
That have no links with men. Ah false but dear, 

275 Dear traitor, too much loved, why ? — why ? — Yet see, 

Before these kings we embrace you yet once more 

With all forgiveness, all oblivion. 

And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, O Sire, 

Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
280 Like mine own brother. Por my debt to him. 

This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it; 

Taunt me no more : yourself and yours shall have 

Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids 

Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
285 What use to keep them here — now ? Grant my prayer. 

Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 

Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 

Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 

From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
290 The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 

Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 

Passionate tears 



90 THE PRINCESS 

Followed : the king replied not : Cyril said : 
" Your brother^ Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
Of your great head — for he is wounded too — 

295 That you may tend upon him with the prince.'^ 
" Ay so/^ said Ida with a bitter smile, 
" Our laws are broken : let him enter too.'' 
Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song, 
And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 

300 Petitioned too for him. " Ay so," she said, 
" I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 
My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 
We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 
" Ay so ? " said Blanche : " Amazed am I to hear 

305 Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease 
The law your Highness did not make : 'twas I. 
I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind. 
And block'd them out ; but these men came to woo 
Your Highness — verily I think to win." 

310 So she, and turn'd askance a wintry eye : 
But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn. 

" Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all, 

315 Not only he, but by my mother's soul. 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe. 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. 
Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us. 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 

320 Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too. 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult but are gone." 

She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 



CANTO VI 91 

325 Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine own 
Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave way 

330 Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 
The virgin marble under iron heels : 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
Eested: but great the crush was, and each base. 
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 

335 In silken fluctuation and the swarm 

Of female whisperers : at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear : but in the center stood 

340 The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 
They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armour clash'd or jingled, while the day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 

345 A flying splendour out of brass and steel. 
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up, 

350 And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 
Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 
Of Ida sounded, issuing ordinance : 
And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 
The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 

355 To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 
To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 
And others everywhere they laid ; and all 



92 THE PRINCESS 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 
And chariot, many a maiden passing home 
360 Till happier times ; but some were left of those 
Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 
From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 
Walk'd at their will, and everything was changed. 





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"Ask me no more: thj^ fate and mine are seal'd: 
I strove against the stream and all in vair." 



Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 

The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 

But too fond ! when have I answer'd thee ? 
, Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more : what answer should I give ? 

I love not hollow cheek or faded eye ; 
" Yet, my friend, I will not have thee die ! 
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd ; 
I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
Let the great river take me to the main : 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more. 



93 



CANTO YII 

So was their sanctuary violated, 
So their fair college turn'd to hospital ; 
At first with all confusion : by and by 
Sweet order lived again with other laws : 
5 A kindlier influence reigned ; and everywhere 
Low voices with the ministering hand 
Hung round the sick : the maidens came, they talk'd, 
They sang, they read : till she not fair began 
To gather light, and she that was became 
10 Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 
With books, with flowers, with Angel offices. 
Like creatures native unto gracious act. 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
15 And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies f ail'd ; seldom she spoke : but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field : void was her use, 
20 And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 

O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore. 
And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, 
25 And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world : so fared she gazing there ; 

94 



CANTO VII 95 

So blacken'd all her world in secret, blank 

And waste it seem'd and vain ; till down she came, 

And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

30 And twilight dawn'd ; and morn by morn the lark 
Shot up and shrilPd in flickering gyres, but I 
Lay silent in the muffled cage of life : 
And twilight gloom 'd ; and broader-grown the bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 

35 Star after star, arose and fell 5 but I, 

Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sundered from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what dye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 

40 -^ But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft, 
Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-favour : here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing, glanced about the couch, 

45 Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain ; nor seem'd it strange that soon 

50 He rose up whole, and those fair charities 

Join'd at her side ; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So gentle, so employ 'd, should close in love, 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 

55 And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 

Less prosperously the second suit obtained 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche liad sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 



96 THE PRINCESS 

She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 

60 Not tho' he built upon the babe restored; 
Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 

65 A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush'd, and she passed on ; but each 
Assumed from thence a half-consent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
70 Held carnival at will, and flying struck 

AYith showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim, 
Nor did mine own now reconciled ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole ; 
75 Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat: 
Then came a change • for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard. 
And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 

80 " You are not Ida " ; clasp it once again, 
And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not ; 
And call her sweet, as if in irony ; 
And call her hard and cold, w^hich seem'd a truth: 
And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 

85 And often she believed that I should die : 
Till out of long frustration of her care. 
And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons. 
And watches in the dead, the dark, when clocks 
Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or calFd 

90 On flying Time from all their silver tongues — 
And out of memories of her kindlier days, 



CANTO VII 97 

And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 

And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 

And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 
95 And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 

And often feeling of the helpless hands. 

And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek — 

From all a closer interest flourished up, 

Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, . 
100 Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears 

By some cold morning glacier ; frail at first 

And feeble, all unconscious of itself. 

But such as gathered colour day by day. 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
105 For weakness : it was evening : silent light 

^lept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 

Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 

The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 

At the Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
110 The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest 

A dwarf-like Cato cower'd. On the other side 

Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 

A train of dames : by ax and eagle sat. 

With all their foreheads drawn in Eoman scowls, 
115 And half the wolfs milk curdled in their veins, 

The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 

Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms : I knew not where I Avas : 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor nu)re 
120 Sweet Ida: palm to palm she sat: tlie dew 
Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her sliape 
And rounder seem'd : I moved : I sigli'd : a toucli 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 



98 THE PRINCESS 

125 Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, 
Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

130 a If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 

I would but ask you to fulfill yourself : 

But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 

I ask you nothing : only, if a dream. 

Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
135 Stoop down, and seem to kiss me ere I die." 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance. 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends. 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign. 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd ; she paused ; 

140 She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cry ; 
Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death ; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 

145 Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe. 
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mold that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 

150 And down the streaming crystal dropt ; and she 
Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and wave. 
To meet her Graces, where they deck'd her out 
For worship without end; nor end of mine, 

155 Stateliest, for thee ! but mute she glided forth, 
Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. 



I 



CANTO VII 99 

Deep in the night I woke : she^ near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her land : 
100 There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 

'^ Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; 
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : 
The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. 

165 Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, 

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
170 A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in me." 

175 I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
Sweet idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

'' Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height » 

What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang) 

In height and cold, the splendour of the hills ? 
180 But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease 

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 

To sit a star upon the sparkling spire ; 

And come, for Love is of the valley, come. 

For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
185 And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 

Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 

Or red with spirted purple of the vats. 

Or foxlike in the vine ; nor cares to walk 

With Death and Morning on the silver horns, 
190 Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 



100 THE PRINCESS 

Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 

195 Xo find him in the valley ; let the wild 

Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
That like a broken purpose waste in air : 

200 So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 

Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee ; the children call, and I 
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 

205 Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

So she low-toned ; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening ; then looked. Pale was the perfect face ,• 

210 The bosom with long sighs laboured ; and meek 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous ej^es, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had faiPd 
In sweet humility; had fail'd in all; 

215 That all her labour was but as a block 

Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 

220 She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power 
In knowledge : something wild within her breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
And she had nursed me there from week to week : 

225 Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet was she but a girl — 



CANTO VII 101 

" Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! 
When comes another such ? never, I think, 
230 Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs.'^ 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands. 
And her great heart thro' all the faultful Past 

^ Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
Till notice of a change in the dark world 

235 Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird. 
That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and ^t her feet the volume fell. 

*' Blame not thyself too much," I said, '^nor blame 
240 Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 

These were the rough ways of the world till now. 

Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 

The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 

Together, dwarf'd or godlike, bond or free : 
245 For she that out of Lethe scales with man 

The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 

His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal. 

Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 

If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
2.50 How shall men grow ? but work no more alone ! 

Our place is much : as far as in us lies 

We two will serve them both in aiding her — 

Will clear away the parasitic forms 

That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 
255 Will leave her space to burgeon out of all 

Within her — let her make herself her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn and be 

All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 

For woman is not undevelopt man, 



102 THE PRINCESS 

260 But diverse : could we make her as the man, 

Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 
265 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world ; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 
270 Like perfect music unto noble words ; 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 
275 Distinct in individualities. 

But like each other ev'n as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men : 

Then reigns the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
280 May these things be ! " 

Sighing she spoke, " I fear 

They will not.'' 

" Dear, but let us type them now 

In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 

Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 

Is half itself, and in true marriage lies 
285 Nor equal, nor unequal : each fulfills 

Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 

Purpose in purpose, w^ill in will, they grow. 

The single pure and perfect animal. 

The two-cell'd heart beating, with one full stroke, 
290 Life." 

And again sighing she spoke : " A dream 

That once was mine! what woman taught you this ? " 




Happy he 



With such a mother ! ' 



CANTO YII 103 

"Alone/' I said, ^^from earlier than I know, 

Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 

I loved the woman : he, that doth not, lives 
295 A drowning life, besotted in sweet self. 

Or pines in sad experience worse than death. 

Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime : 

Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 

Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
300 Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 

No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 

In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 

Interpreter between the Gods and men, 

Who looked all native to her place, and yet 
305 On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 

Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 

Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved. 

And girdled her with music. Happy he 

With such a mother ! faith in womankind 
310 Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high 

Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall 

He shall not blind his soul with clay.'' 

" But I," 

Said Ida, tremulously, " so all unlike — 

It seems you love to cheat yourself with words : 
315 This mother is your model. I have heard 

Of your strange doubts : they well might be : I seem 

A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince ; 

You cannot love me." 

" Nay but thee," I said, 

" From yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, 
320 Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw 

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 

That mask'd thee from men's reverence up, and forced 

Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood : now, 

Giv'n back to life, to life indeed, thro' thee, 



104 THE PRINCESS 

325 Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over : lift thine eyes ; my doubts are dead, 
My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change, 
This truthful change in thee has kilPd it. Dear, 

330 Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, 
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world ; 
Approach and fear not ; breathe upon my brows ; 
In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this 

335 Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, 
I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride, 
My wife, my life. Oh, we will walk this world, 

340 Yoked in all exercise of noble end, 

And so thro' those dark gates across the wild 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come, 
Yield thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself ; 

345 Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.^' 



CONCLUSION 

So closed our tale, of which I give you all 
The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 
The words are mostly mine ; for when we ceased 
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 
5 "1 wish she had not yielded ! " then to me, 
'' What, if you drest it up poetically ! " 
So pray'd the men, the women : 1 gave assent : 
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven 
Together in one sheaf ? What style could suit ? 

10 The men required that I should give throughout 
That sort of mock-heroic gigantesque. 
With which we banter'd little Lilia first : 
The women — and perhaps they felt their power. 
For something in the ballads which they sang, 

15 Or in their silent influence as they sat. 
Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 
They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 
A gallant fight, a noble princess — why 

20 Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime ? 
Or all, they said, as earnest as the close ? 
Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 
Then rose a little feud betwixt the two. 
Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 

25 And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 
And yet to give the story as it rose, 

106 



106 THE PRINCESS 

I moved as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 

30 In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 

Had touch 'd her ; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass, 

She flung it from her, thinking : last, she iixt 

A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 

^^ You — tell us what we are,'' who might have told, 

35 For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now. 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these : we climb'd 
40 The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 

The happy valleys, half in light, and half 

Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 

Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 

Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
45 Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of Avheat ; 

The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 

A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond. 

Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 

" Look there, a garden ! " said my college friend, 
50 The Tory member's elder son, " and there ! 
God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
55 Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made. 
Some patient force to change them when we will. 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
But yonder, whiff ! there comes a sudden heat. 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 



CONCLUSION 107 

60 The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, 

The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 

A kingdom topples over with a shriek 

Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 

In mock heroics stranger than onr own ; 
65 Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 

No graver than a schoolboy's barring out ; 

Too comic for the solemn things they are, 

Too solemn for the comic touches in them. 

Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 
70 As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas ! 

I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.'' 

" Have patience," I replied, " ourselves are full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
75 For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half -science, fill me with a faith. 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides.'^ 

80 In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails. 

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 

Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, 

Among six boys, head under head, and look'd 

No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
85 A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, 

A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 

A raiser of huge melons and of pine, 

A patron of some thirty charities, 

A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
90 A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 

Fair-hairM and redder than a windy morn ; 

Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 



108 THE PRINCESS 

That stood the nearest — now addressed to speech — 
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed 

95 Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 
To follow : a shout rose again, and made 
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve 
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 

100 Beyond the bourn of sunset ; oh, a shout 
More joyful than the city roar that hails 
Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 
Give up their parks some dozen times a year 
To let the people breathe ? So thrice they cried, 

105 I likewise, and in groups they streamed away. 

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on. 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd : we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie. 
Perchance upon the future man : the walls 

110 Blacken'd about us, bats wheeled, and owls whoop'd, 
And gradually the powers of the night. 
That range above the region of the wind. 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 

115 Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly. 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. 



NOTES 



PROLOGUE 

1 Tennyson "was present on July 6, 1842, at a festival of the 
Maidstone Mechanics' Institute held in our Park, of which 
he has introduced a lively description in the beginning of 
The Princess.'' — Edmund Lushington. 
•^In 1841 and 1842 I paid two visits in the month of August 
to Park House near Maidstone. I found there ... a bright, 
charming, anfi happy group of his [Edmund Lushington] 
brothers and sisters. I remember watching him [Tennyson] 
as he sat on a garden seat on the grass, in a brown suit, look- 
ing somewhat grave and silent." — Dean Stanley, in 
Memoirs of Lord Tennyson. 
5 Borough : a town, whether corporate or not, entitled to repre- 
sentation in Parliament. 
11 In the seventeenth century the influence of the Renaissance 
brought into England the fashion of Italian Renaissance 
domestic architecture, which embodied many Greek features, 
and caused it to supersede the Gothic architecture of Eng- 
lish country seats. 

14 After the suppression of monasteries by Henry VHI. many 

monastic estates became the homes of private families, but 
usually new residences were built and the stately buildings 
of the monks were allowed to fall into ruins in the grounds. 

15 Ammonites: curved or spiral fossil shells; named from eornu 

Ainmonis^ih^ curling ram's horn of the Egyptian god Amnion. 

17 Celts : prehistoric weapons of stone or bronze. 
Calumets : Indian tobacco pipes with reed stems. 

18 Claymore: the heavy two-handed sword of the Scotch High- 

landers. 

20 A set of ivory balls carved one within another in delicate and 

elaborate design by the Chinese carvers of ivory. 

21 Crease : a Malayan dagger or short sword having a waved 

blade. 

109 



110 NOTES 

25 Agincourt : a battle in which the English under Henry Y. 

overcame the French, 1415. 

26 Ascalon : a city in Palestine where Richard Coeiir de Lion 

conquered the Saracens, 1192. 
31 Slashed to right and left vigorously. 
64 Will-o'-the-wisp. 

86 '* My soger laddie is over the sea, 

And he will bring gold and silver to me." 

— A Scotch Song. 

87 Ambrosial : fragrant, like the food of the gods. 

89 Smacking of the time : expressive of the nineteenth century's 

great woi'k in developing and popularizing science. 
92 The upward springing curves and points of Gothic architec- 
ture subtly suggest the lines of aspiring flames. 

110-117 In the English universities, the college buildings are 
guarded by high stone walls and w^rought-iron gates, sur- 
rounded by spikes ; the windows of the first-floor rooms are 
heavily barred. The proctors are university officials w^ho 
look after the good order of the students. They employ 
subproctors as police, wdiom the students name '^ bulldogs." 
The tutors are the college instructors, the master, the college 
president. 

161 In English universities, the student must be in residence a 
certain number of weeks in each term, else the term's work 
cannot be counted toward the degree. 

176-177 Remained at the university during the vacation to study 
mathematics. 

184 Drank your healths. 

CANTO I 

5-18 Tennyson wrote in 1874, at a time when he w^as interested 
in the Metaphysical Society : " I have never had any 
revelations through anaesthetics, but a kind of waking 
trance (this for lack of a better name) I have frequently 
had quite up from my boyhood when I have been all alone. 
This has often come to me through repeating my own 
name to myself silently, till, all at once, as it were, out 
of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the 



CANTO I 111 

individuality itself seemed to resolve and fade avv ay into 
boundless being, and this not a confused state, but the 
clearest of the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly 
beyond words, when death was an almost laughable im- 
possibility. The loss of personality (if it were so) seeming- 
no extinction, but the only true life. I am ashamed of my 
feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly 
beyond words ? " 

19 Galen: a famous Greek physician (a. d. 1^30-200). 

23 Regarded as almost a saint. 

30-34 Marriages at very early ages, especially when between 
royal personages contracted for state reasons, were common 
in the Middle Ages. Often the bridegroom was represented 
by a proxy,' in which case part of the ceremony required 
that the proxy should appear with " his leg stript naked to 
the knee." 

65 Cooked his spleen : nuised his wrath. See Iliad, IV., 513. 

0^3 " Hung with catkins as in the hazel-wood. It was springtime. '* 

— Hall AM Tennyson. 

96-99 Compare — 

" A wind arose among the pines, it shook 
The clinging music from their boughs, and then 
Low, sweet, faint sounds like the farewell of ghosts, 
Were heard: ' Oh follow, follow, follow me ! ' " 

— Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, II., 1, 156-159. 

109 Tilth: Tilled ground. 

Grange : An outlying farmhouse with its cluster of farm 
buildings. 

110 Blowing bosks: '' Uncultivated thickets blooming with wild 

flowers." 

111 Mother-city: metropolis. 

116 Without a star: with none of the decorations of the orders 
of nobility. 

120 Signet gem: a seal ring, probably the royal seal and so a 
token of authority. 

134 An interesting parallel, which was possibly the suggestion 
of the whole poem, is found in Johnson's Rasselas. "The 
princess thought that, of all sublunary things, knowledge 
was best : she desired, first, to learn all sciences, and then 



112 NOTES 

proposed to found a college of learned women, in which 
she would preside, that, by conversing with the old and 
educating the young, she might divide her time between 
the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise 
up for the next age models of prudence and patterns of 
piety." 

170 Liberties : '' An English legal term for the adjacent privileged 
territory, here used of the outskirts of the estate, within 
which the exclusive rights granted to the Princess were 
exercised." — Woodbekry. 

171" Hostel : a hostelry or tavern. 

174 Sibilation : a hissing sound. 

187 To post: wayside taverns where the mail coaches stopped 

had a system of exchange of horses taken for the stage 
from one " post-house " to another. 

188 Boys : postilions, servants who accompanied the post horses. 
193 Presented : represented. 

201 Guerdon : reward. 

217 " As Tennyson was walking at night in a friend's garden, he 
heard a nightingale singing with such a frenzy of passion 
that it was unconscious of everything else, and not fright- 
ened though he came and stood quite close beside it ; he 
could see its eye flashing, and feel the air bubble in his ear 
through the vibrations." 

— Mrs. Anne Thackeray Ritchie. 

219 Pallas : the Greek goddess of knowledge. 

220 One lamp was decorated with a map of the constellations, 

the other with a map of the terrestrial globe. 

239 See Plato's Symposium as translated by Jowett (II., 32): 
" And am I not right in asserting that there are two 
goddesses? The elder one having no mother, who is called 
the heavenly Aphrodite — she is the daughter of Uranus ; 
the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione — her 
we call common ; and the Love who is her fellow-worker 
may and must also have the name of common, as the other 
love is called heavenly." 

244 " There was a period in my life, when, as- an artist. Turner 
for instance, takes rough sketches of landskip, etc., in 
order to work them eventually into some great picture, so 



CANTO II 113 

I was in the habit of chronicling, in four or five words, or 
more, whatever might strike me as picturesque in Nature. 
I never put these down, and many and many a line has 
gone away on the north wind, but some remain, e.g. 

** ' A full sea glaz'd with muffled moonlight.' 

" Suggestion 

" The sea one night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most 
lovely sea-village in England, tho' now a smoky town. 
The sky was covered with thin vapor, and the moon 
behind it." — Tennyson Memoirs. 

I 

CANTO II 

Song. It was not until the third edition of The Princess that 
the songs were added, but from a letter that Tennyson 
wrote to Mr. S. E. Dawson (1882) it is clear that they were 
a part of the original plan for the poem. " I may tell you 
that the songs were not an afterthought. Before the first 
edition came out I deliberated witii myself whether I 
should put songs in between the separate divisions of the 
poem ; again, I thought, the poem will explain itself ; but 
the public did not see that the child, as you say, was the 
heroine of the piece, and at last I conquered my laziness 
and inserted them. You would be still more certain that 
the child was the true heroine if, instead of the first song 
as it now stands, 

" ' As thro' the land at eve we went,' 

I had printed the first song which I wrote, The Losing of 
the Child. The child is sitting on the bank of a rivei*, and 
playing with the flowers; a flood comes down; a dam lias 
been broken through ; the child is borne down by the flood; 
the whole village distracted ; after a time the flood lias sub- 
sided ; the child is thrown safe and sound again upon the 
bank, and all the women are in raptures. I (piite forget 
the words of the ballad, but I think I may have it some- 
where." 



114 NOTES 

In the Tennyson Memoirs a part of the ballad is given as 
follows : — 

'* The child was sitting on the bank 

Upon a stormy day, 
He loved the river's roaring sound ; 
The river rose and burst his bound, 
Flooded fifty leagues around, 
Took the child from off the ground, 

And bore the child away. 
O the child so meek and wise, 
Who made us wise and mild." 

Charles Kiiig\sley interprets most concisely, perhaps, the 

meaning of the songs in their setting: — 
"At the end of the first canto, fresh from the description of 

the female college, with its professoresses, and hostleresses, 

. . . we turn the page, and — 

" * As thro' the land at eve we went.' 

" Between the next two cantos intervenes the well-known 
cradle-song, perhaps the best of all ; and at the next 
interval is the equally well-known bugle-song, the idea of 
wdiich is that of twin-labor and twin-fame in a pair of 
lovers. In the next the memory of wife and child inspirits 
the soldier on the field ; in the next, the sight of the fallen 
hero's child opens the sluices of his widow's tears, and 
in the last . . .the poet has succeeded ... in supei'adding 
a new^ form of emotion to a canto in which he seemed to 
have exhausted every resource of pathos which his subject 
allowed." — Frazefs Magazine, September, 1850. 

10-11 Bossed with lengths of classic frieze : in classical buildings, 
the part above the beam which rests on the pillars and is 
below the edge of the roof is called the frieze, and is usually 
decorated with carved figures. 

13 There were nine Muses, each of whom presided over some 
one province of art, science, or poetry : Clio, history ; 
Melpomene, tragedy; Thalia, comedy; Euterpe, -lyric 
poetry; Terpsichore, choral song and dance; Erato, 
amorous poetry ; Calliope, epic ; Urania, astronomy ; Poly- 
hymnia, lofty hymns. The Graces were three personifica- 



CANTO II 115 

tions of beauty, named Agiaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, 
and attendant upon Aphrodite, Queen of Love. 

60 Entered on the boards : the English University technical 

phrase for registering as students. 

61 It is the custom in English colleges to adorn the great 

dining hall, which is also used for lectures, with portraits 
of famous alumni, partly, no doubt, to stir the pride and 
ambition of the undergraduates. The Princess substi- 
tutes for the same purpose statues of eminent women of 
antiquity. 

63 Odalisques : female slaves in an Oriental harem. 

64 She : " The second king of Rome, Numa, was a Sabine 

of the city of Cures. He was believed to have received 
the laws, both civil and religious, from the nymph Egeria." 
— Daw\son. 

65 She : the famous legendary queen of Assyria, Semiramis, 

who is said to have lived about 2182 B.C. and to have 
^ built Babylon. 

67 Artemisia : the wife of King Mausolus of Caria, said to have 

fought in the battle of Salamis, 480 B.C., assisting Xerxes. 

68 Rhodope : another form of Rhodopis, an Egyptian woman 

of much fame for her beauty, to whom the building of the 
pyramid is wrongly attributed. 

69 Clelia : a Roman maiden who escaped from Porsena, to whom 

she had been given as hostage, by swimming the Tiber on 
horseback. 
Cornelia: a daughter of the Scipio Africanus who conquered 
Hannibal, and the mother of the (jracchi. She was con- 
sidered the ideal of Roman motherhood. 

69-70 Palmyrene that fought Aurelian : the queen of Palmyra, 
Zenobia, was conquered by the Roman emperor Aurelian 
and brought to Rome to adorn his triumph. 

71 Agrippina : a noble Roman matron, wife of Gernianicus, 
whom she accompanied on his campaigns into Germany. 

97-98 "The Phrygian king, INlidas, told his wife the secret of 

the changing of his ears to those of an ass. Slie, unable 

to hold the secret, told it to the waters of a marsh, and the 

growing sedges whispered it to the world.'* — Chalmkrs. 

101-103 This is a brief statement of the nebular hypothesis, first 



116 NOTES 

advocated by Laplace, a French scientist, early in the nine- 
teenth century. 

105 Woaded : painted with woad, a dark blue coloring matter 

used by the ancient Britons. 

106 Prime : primitive state. 

110 Amazon : a warlike nation, composed almost entirely of 
women, supposed to exist in Asia. 

112 Lycian custom: "They have one cuistom peculiar to them- 

selves . . . for they take their name from their mothers, 
not from their fathers." — Herodotus, I., 173. 

113 Lar and Lucumo : titles of honor borne by princes and priests 

in ancient Etruria. From certain Etruscan pictures of 
women seated at banquets with men, it is supposed that 
such was the national custom. 

117 Fulmined: thundered. 

Laws Salique : laws which forbid the passing of inheritance 
through female line. 

118 Mahomet : " Does she allude to a report once popular that 

Mahomet denied that women have souls, or that, according 
to the INIohammedan doctrine, hell was chiefly peopled 
with women ? " — Hallam Tennyson. 
144 Verulam : Francis Bacon, Baron Yerulam. 

146 Elizabeth : Queen Elizabeth of England. 

147 Joan : Joan of Arc. 

148 Sappho : a Greek poetess. 

180 Academe : another form of academy, but used perhaps to 

suggest Plato's famous school. 

181 Sirens : the sea-nymphs of classical legends, who by their 

singing lured sailors to wreck their vessels on the rocks. 

188 Weasel on a grange : referring to a custom, not uncommon in 
our country, of nailing on a barn door the skin of any small, 
depredating animal, as a warning to others of its kind. 

209 Garth: garden. 

224 Bestrode : stood above to defend. 

263 In ancient Sparta all natural affections were subordinated to 

the public welfare. ' _ 

264 Brutus : a Roman consul in the early days of the Roman 

republic (about 509 B.C.) who condemned to death his own 
sons proven traitors to the republic. 



CANTO III 117 

319 Danaid : the DanaMes, daughters of Danaus, king of Argos, 

in punishment for their murder of their husbands were 

condemned to Hades^ there to pour perpetually water into 

vessels full of holes. 
323 Aspasia: a Greek woman, friend of Pericles and his group, 

famous for her intellectual endowments. 
325 Sheba : A reference to the visit of the Queen of Sheba to 

Solomon to test his wisdom. 
353-355 It may be noted that odes, elegies, and epics are the 

especial forms of classical poetry. 
388 Malison : Malediction, curse. 
420 Astraean age : " According to the old myth, Astrsea was the 

last of the deities to leave the earth in the Iron Age, and 

it was believed that she would be the first to come back at 

the return of the Golden Age." — Rolfe. 
448 In several of the English colleges it is the custom for students 

to exchange their habitual black gowuis for white surplices 
^ to wear during the services in the college chapel. 



CANTO III 

11 Iris: the rainbow; hence the dark rings resulting from a 

vigil of tears. 
34 Rubric: in old prayer-books the liturgical directions were 

written or printed in red (Latin ruber) that they might be 

more obvious. So Melissa's rosy blushes proclaim her 

thoughts. 

55 Ganymedes : a Trojan youth, famous for his beauty, who 

was carried to Olympus to be the cupbearer of Zeus. 

56 Vulcan : the god of fire and forging, wdio was cast from 

heaven to earth. 

61 Right and left : the tw^o factions or parlies in some European 
legishitive bodies are so termed. 

73 Inosculated: " Blend together into one. The word is gener- 
ally used in special derivative application to the care of 
veins and other vessels tliat have been nuide to run into 
one another, but here there is no doubt a closer reference 
to the etymoh)gy of tlie word, wliich is derived from the 



118 NOTES 

Latin osculor, 'to kiss/ and thus signifies primarily unity 
through aifection." — Wallace. 

96 Her, and her: Lady Psyche and Melissa, or, perhaps, any 

other women of the college. 

97 Hebes : Hebe was the goddess of youth, daughter of Zeus 

and Here, and cupbearer of the gods. 
99 Samian Here : Here, wife of Zeus and favorite goddess of 
the city of Samos. 

100 Memnon: the name given to a colossal statue near Thebes, 
in Egypt, which, when touched by the rays of the rising 
sun, is said to give forth a sound of music. 

104 Empurpled champaign : the open, level country, rosy in the 
morning light, or else, as Hallam Tennyson explains, " blue 
in the distance." 

Ill Prime: primeval. 

115 At point to move : about to act upon her discovery by re- 
vealing it to the Princess. 

126 Limed : caught as a bird is caught w^ith bird-lime, a sticky 
substance smeared on tree branches to catch them when 
they light. 

154 The dip of certain strata to the North : to measure the in- 
clination of certain beds of rock in relation to the horizon. 

159 Platans : plane trees. 

212 Vashti : *' On the seventh day, wiien the heart of the king 
w^as merry with w4ne, he commanded ... to bring 
Yashti, the queen, before the king ... to shew the 
people and the princes her beauty, for she was fair to look 
upon. But the queen, Yashti, refused to come at the king's 
commandment." — Esther i. 10-12. 

215 Breathes full East: referring to the dry, unpleasant east 
wizid prevalent in England. 

218 Gray: ancient. 

246 IIov (TTo : " The Princess is quoting the celebrated saying of 
Archimedes to King Hiero. That philosopher was a master 
of all the arts of applied mechanics, and, dwelling on the 
enormous mechanical powders of the lever, he exclaimed, 
* Give me where I may stand (pou sto), and I will move the 
world.' " — Dawson. 

261 Taboo : "■ The word was brought home by Captain Cook's 



CANTO III 119 

expedition. The South Sea Islands were under the domi- 
nation of a priesthood, which reserved to its own use any- 
thing which any of the members of its class might fancy, 
by marking it and calling it taboo, or devoted to religious 
purposes." — Dawson. 

262 GynaBceum : " The part of a Greek house reserved for women." 
— Cook. 

269-270 " The two forms mentioned here were probably suggested 
by two legends of ancient Rome : (1) In the Latin war 
(340 B. c), Publius Deciiis Mus, one of the Roman generals, 
sacrificed himself on the spears of the enemy in order to 
secure the victory to his army, it having been revealed to 
him in a vision from Heaven that one army was doomed, 
and the general of the other. (A somewhat similar act of 
devotion is recorded of Arnold von Winkelried, in the 
battle of Sempach, 1388, during the Swiss struggle for inde- 
pendence against the Austrians ; this hero, seeing that the 
Austrian line of spears was impregnable, gathered into his 
breast as many as he could, and falling upon them created 
a gap into which his comrades poured.) (2) A chasm 
having appeared in the market-place of Rome, and tlie 
priests having declared that this would not close up until 
there had been cast into it the chief element of Rome's 
greatness, a young noble named Marcus Curtius, thinking 
* that this condition would be best fulfilled by the sacrifice of 
one of her sons, leapt into it on horseback and in full 
armor (362 B.C.)." — AVallace. 

285 Diotima : A woman referred to in Plato's Sijmposium as tlie 
instructor of Socrates. 

288 Schools : courses of study. 

334 Elysian lawns : " The ' Elysian lawns ' are the lawns of Elys- 
ium, and iiave nothing to do with Troy — or, perliaps, tliey 
rather refer to the Islands of the Blest." — Tknnyson, in a 
letter to W. J. Rolfe. 

331 Corinna^s triumph: A (ireek poetess, who, in the public 
games at Thebes, defeated Pindar the famous writer of 
odes, in a contest of poetical skill. 

344-345 Names of various kinds of rocks, selected here for their 
" stony " sounds. 



120 NOTES 



CANTO IV 

Song. It is fairly certain that this song was inspired by a 
visit to the Lake of Killarney. Mrs. Anne Thackeray 
Ritchie gives this reminiscence of Tennyson's about the 
echo at Killarney : " He said to the boatman, ' When I was 
last here I heard eight echoes, and now I hear only one.' 
To which the man, who had heard people quoting the 
Bugle Song, replied, ' Why, you must be the gentleman 
that brought all the many to the place.' " 
5 Coppice-feathered : lightly fringed with foliage. 
21-40 " He told me that Tears, Idle I'ears was written as an 
expression of such longings. 'It is, in a way, like St. 
Paul's groanings which cannot be uttered. It was writ- 
ten at Tintern, when the woods were all yellowing with 
autumn seen through the ruined windows. It is what I 
have always felt even from a boy, and what as a boy I called 
the "passion of the past." And it is so always with me now : 
it is the distance that charms me in the landscape, the pic- 
ture, and the past, and not the immediate to-day in which 
I move.' " — Knowles, Nineteenth Century, XXXIII., 170. 
"The idea of this lyric had been resting in the poet's 
mind since 1831. Then, at the age of twenty-two, he pub- 
lished in The Gem the following poem, omitted from the 
recent editions of his works : — 

'' ' O sad No more ! O sweet No more ! 
O strange No more ! 
By the mossed brook-bank on a stone 
I smelt a wildwood flower alone ; 
There was a ringing in my ears, 
And both my eyes gushed out with tears ; 
Surely all pleasant things had gone before 
Low-buried fathom deep beneath with thee ; 
No more ! ' " 

— Dawson. 

59 Canceled Babels : " And they said. Go to, let us build us a city 
and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven ; andT let us 
make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face 
of the whole earth. . . . Therefore is the name of it Babel 
because the Lord did there confound the language of all 



CANTO IV 121 

the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them 
abroad upon the face of all the earth." — Genesis xi. 1-9. 
Kex : hemlock. 
69 Death's-head : " At then- convivial banquets among the wealthy 
classes [of Egyptians], when they have finished supper, a 
man carries round in a coffin the image of a dead body carved 
in wood, . . . and showing this to each of the company, 
he says, 'Look upon this, then drink and enjoy yourself; 
for when dead you will be like this.'" — Herodotus, L, 78. 

100-102 Ithacensian suitors : " The reference is to the Odyssey, XX., 
347. The suitors at the court of Penelope feel the occult 
influence of the unseen goddess, Pallas, causing their 
thoughts to wander. They fail to recognize Ulysses in his 
disguise, and^ their laughter is constrained and unnatural, 
they know not why. The laugh ivith alien lips, wiiich is the 
nearest possible translation of the Greek idiomatic expres- 
sion, 'They laughed with other men's jaws.'" — Dawsox. 

104 Bulbul, Gulistan : Persian words for nightingale and rose 
garden. 

110 Bricks in Egypt : When we served in bondage before our 
exodus to our own domain. A reference to the labors of 
the Israelites while in bondage in Egypt. 

117 Canzonets: little songs. 

121 Valkyrian hymns: "Such as were sung by the Valkyrs, or 
Valkyrias, the 'choosers of tlie slain,' or fatal sisters of 
Odin in the Northern mythology. They were represented 
as awful and beautiful maidens, who, mounted on swift 
horses and bearing drawn swords, presided over the field of 
battle, selecting those destined for death, and conducting 
them to Valhalla, w^here they ministered at the feasts of 
heroes." — Rolfe. 

126 Mock-Hymen: According to Greek myths. Hymen was the 
god of marriage. 

139 Tavern-catch: a drinking song. Compare Shakespeare's 
Tempest, II., 2, where Stephano enters with a bottle in his 
hand, singing : — 

''The master, the swabber, the boatswain and 
The gunner and Iiis mate, 
Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, 
But none of us eared for Kate." 



122 NOTES 

180 Indian craft: woodcraft, in which jSTorth American Indians 
excel. 

183 Caryatids : sculptured female figures sometimes used in 

place of columns in Greek architecture. 

184 Valves : doors or gates, from the Latin name. 

185-187 The hunter Acteon, because he saw Diana and her 
nymphs bathing, was transformed into a stag. 

194 The Bear : " The northern constellation of Ursa Major. It 
is composed of seven stars near and about the North star." 

— Chalmers. 

207 Judith : a Jewish maiden, who made her way into the camp 
of the besiegers of her native city, and gaining admission 
to the tent of the leader, Holofernes, cut off his head as he 
lay in a drunken sleep; thence escaping, she bore back the 
head as a trophy to her city, and sent her countrymen to 
fall upon the enemy while they were yet panic-stricken at 
the loss of their general. The story is told in the apocry- 
phal Book of Judith. 

242 Thrid: thread. 

Musky-circled Mazes: '^ Garden walks with fragrant borders.'' 

— Wallace. 

243 Boles : tree trunks. 

250 Mnemosyne : goddess of memory. 

255 Mystic fire : a globular electric light, sometimes seen on a 

spar of a ship in storm. Sometimes called " St. Elmo's 

fire," and sometimes ''corposant." 
261 Druid rock: groups of huge upright stones, such as the 

group at Stonehenge, which are supposed to be relics of 

Druid religious rites. 
263 Mews : sea mews, or sea gulls. 
275 Castalies : Castalia, a fountain on Mount Parnassus, was 

sacred to the Muses, and was supposed to give poetical 

inspiration to all who drank of it. 
292 Jonah's gourd : " And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and 

made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow 

over his head. . . . But God prepared a worm when the 

morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it 

withered." — Jonah iv. 6-7, 
313 Nursery ; a nursery garden where young trees are grown. 



CANTO IV 123 

314 Touchwood : soft, combustible material used as tinder. 

347 To hatch the cuckoo : the cuckoo does not build a nest for 
herself, but deposits her eggs in the nests of other birds, 
who hatch them and rear the young birds. 

352 Niobean daughter : Niobe, wife of King Amphion of Thebes, 
had twelve beautiful daughters, who were slain out of 
jealousy by Apollo and Diana, who also turned Niobe to 
stone. 

366-367 About 1830, farm laborers in England, to avenge griev- 
ances against their employers, began to burn hayricks. 
Tennyson refers to this in a poem To Mary Boyle. 

** And once — I well remember that red night 
When thirty ricks, 
All flaming, made an English homestead Hell.'* 

415 Glowworm: phosphorescent. 

418 Cassiopeia : a mythical queen of Ethiopia, whose name is 

given to a northern constellation. 

419 - Persephone : the queen of Pluto, who carried her off from 

the earth to reign with him in Hades. 
Frequence : throng. 

Dwarfs of presage: disappointing, when seen, the expectation. 
It is stated as a fact by naturalists that the seal does do so. 
Protomartyr : first martyr, a name given to St. Stephen. 
Turnspits : cooks* assistants set to turn and baste the meat 

in roasting. 
Norway sun: On midsummer day, June 22, in the Arctic 

circle, the sun remains above the horizon at night. The 

extreme northern part of Norway is the usual place from 

which travellers witness this phenomenon. 

Interlude 

Song. Another version of this song is given by Dawson : — 

" Lady, let the rolling drums 

Beat to battle where thy warrior stands ; 
Now thy face across his fancy comes, 
A.nd gives the battle to his hands. 

** Lady, let the trumpets blow, 

Clasp thy little babes about thy knee ; 
Now their warrior father meets the foe, 
And strikes him dead for thiue and thee." 



124 NOTES 



CANTO y 

2 Stationary voice : the voice of a sentinel. 

4 The second two : the first were Cyril and Psyche. 

13 Innumerous : innumerable. 

14 Gilded squire : a squire was a youth in training for knight- 

hood, and usually richly dressed. 

25 Mawkin : a maidservant performing the most menial duties. 

26 Sludge : mire. 

37 Transient : changing. 

38 Woman-slough : woman garments ; as a snake casts off its 

slough, or dead skin. 
40 Harness : armor. 
110 Parle : in parley. 
121 Year: harvest. 
125 Lightens : flashes. 

132 Shards : fragments of brittle substances, as of earthen ves- 
sels. 
Catapults : engines for bombardment. 
142 Mammoth : a large elephant of prehistoric times, recently 

found embedded in ice in Siberia. 
146 Idiot legend : that of the old sorcerer, I., 5. 
157 Dashed with death : spattered with blood. 
162 Cherry net : in England nets are sometimes placed over fruit 

trees to protect them from birds. 
170 Gagelike : as a knight flung down his glove, or gage, as a 

token of defiance. 
179 Satyr : in Greek mythology, a woodland deity, half human, 

half goat, hence very coarse and brutish. 
190 Piebald : spotted with different colors. 
195 Mooted : disputed ; put in question. 
213 Bussed : kissed. 
222 Foursquare : like the great square keep of mediaeval castles, 

the strongest part of the fortifications. 
227 A thousand rings : the growth of each year makes a new ring 

in the trunk, hence these were a thousand years old. 
246 Thews : muscles and sinews. 
250 Giant's zone : the belt of the constellation Orion. 



CANTO V 125 

252-254 " Every bright star when close to the horizon shows these 
colors, and so much the more distinctly as the star is the 
brighter. Sirius, which surpasses the brightest stars of the 
northern hemisphere full four times in lustre, shows these 
changes of color so conspicuously that they were regarded 
as specially characteristic of this star, insomuch that 
Homer speaks of Sirius (not by name, but as the ' Star 
of Autumn ') shining most beautifully ' when laved of 
ocean's wave,' that is, when close to the horizon." 

— Proctor, Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, 

254 Morions : helmets. 

266 'S death : God's death, an old oath. 

283-285 St. something. St. Catherine of Alexandria, a Christian 
saint half mythical, said to have lived in the fourth cen- 
tury and to have been the daughter of Costus, the half- 
brother of Constantine, by Sabinella, queen of Egypt, 
w^hom she succeeded on the throne of that country. Her 
chief feat was the conversion to Christianity, by her ability 
in scholarly logic, of fifty learned men whom the Emperor 
Maxentius sent to convert her to paganism. 

319 False daughters: the ducklings she has hatched. 

337-340 " I have been out for a walk with A. T. to a sort of 
island between two waterfalls, with pines on it, of which 
he retained a recollection from his visit of thirty-one years 
ago, and which, moreover, furnished a simile to The 
Princess. He is very fond of this place, evidently." 
— Arthur Hugh Clough, from the Valley of Cauterets, 
September 7, 1861. 

355 Tomyris: Queen of the Massagetae, who defeated and 

slew Cyrus (529 B.C.) Before the battle she had threat- 

' ened him with his fill of blood, so when his head was 

brought to her she offered it a vessel of blood, bidding it 

drink. 

367 " Alhision is made . . . to Russian customs in the seventeentli 
century. One was that the bride, on lier wedding day, 
should present her husband, in token of submission, with 
a whip made by her own hands. Another was tliat on 
arriving at the nuptial cliamber the bridegroom ordered 
the bride to pull off his boots. In one was a whip, in the 



I 



126 NOTES 

other a trinket. If she pulled off the one with the whip 
first, the groom gave her a slight blow." — Dawsox. 
369-374 These lines allude to the Hindoo customs of burning 
widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands, and of cast- 
ing female children into the Ganges lest they shall fail to 
be married at the proper age. 

381 Memorial : commemorative works of art. 

382 Institutes : laws and regulations. 

408 Yoked with children's : women and children have been classed 
together as dependents, requiring protection. 

412 Orbs : encircled between the poles. 

417 Egypt-plague: Referring to the various plagues sent upon 
Egypt because of the cruelty of Pharaoh toward the Israel- 
ites. (Exodus viii.-x.). 

441-442 The gray mare: an allusion to the proverb, ''The gray mare 
is the better horse," applied to a wife who rules her husband. 

443 Tile : roof. 

Scullery: a room where kitchen utensils are cleaned. 

448 Bantling : infant. 

478 Bare on : bore forward. 

491 Mellay : melee, a confused combat. 

500 Miriam and Jael : Miriam was a Hebrew prophetess who sang 
to cymbals a song of triumph over Pharaoh by the Red 
Sea (Exodus xv.). Jael was a Jewess who slew Sisera by 
driving a nail through his temple (Judges iv.). 

503 Saint's glory: an aureole or ring of light about the head of 
a holy person, as represented in pictures. 

Interlude 

Song. Another version of this was printed in a volume in 
1865, as follows : — 

*' Home they brought him slain with spears, 
They brought him home at even-fall ; 
All alone she sits and hears 
Echoes in his empty hall, 

Sounding on the morrow. 

'* The sun peeped in from open field, 

The boy began to leap and prance, 
Rode upon his father's lance, 
Beat upon his father's shield, 

' Oh hush, my joy, my sorrow 1 ' " 



CANTO VI 127 



CANTO VI 

16 Dame of Lapidoth : '' And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of 
Lapidoth, judged Israel at that time " (Judges iv. 4). For 
the eloquent song of triumph which Deborah sang over the 
fallen Si sera, see Judges v. 
25 The red cross : trees were so marked as a sign to the wood- 
men to cut them dow^n. 
47 Blanched : made a white day, a holiday. 
49 Spring : the flowers and leafage of springtime. 
65 Isles of light : " They are ' isles of light,' spots of sunshine 
coming through the leaves, and seeming to slide from one 
to another as the procession of girls moves under shade." 
— Tennyson to S. E. Dawson, 1882. 
70 Fretwork : antlers. 
118 Brede : embroidery. 
158 Nemesis : in Greek mythology, the goddess of retributive 

justice. 
166 Port : opening. 

186 Dead prime : in the silence just before the dawm. 
224 Lot^s wife : she was turned into a pillar of salt, as a punish- 
ment for her disobedience (Genesis xix.). 
239-240 Terms used in higher mathematics and astronomy. 
283 Adit: entrance. 

289 Mob me up : Make me one of the mob of. 
319 Pharos : a famous lighthouse of antiquity, which stood on the 

island of Pharos, near Alexandria. 
321 In the first and second editions were inserted after this line 
the following : — 

' " Go help the half-brained dwarf, Society, 
To find low motives unto noble deeds. 
To fix all doubt upon the darker side." 

338 Supporters : a term in lieraldry for the figures tliat stand on 
either side of a coat of arms. 

347 Pallas : the goddess of knowledge. 

348 Diana : the goddess of chastity. 
352 Ordinance : orders. 



128 NOTES 



CANTO yii 



n 



12 Native unto : born to do. 

18 Leaguer : beleaguering army. 

19 Void was her use : her usua,l occupation was gone. 

20-26 Tennyson says that this simile was suggested to him by 
"a coming storm, seen from the top of Snowdon." 

25 Tarn : a small, dark mountain lake. 

31 Gyres: circles. 

33-35 The shadows of night disappeared with daylight, until the 
only darkness remaining was that of the deep shade cast 
by the bowery woods, whose extent was more visible in 
daytime ; likewise the sky seemed to grow loftier with day, 
and to come closer at nightfall, as the stars came out one 
by one. 

45 Silks : silken curtains of the bed. 

71 Showers of random sweet : in carnivals it is the custom for 
•the merrymakers to pelt each other with flowers and sweet- 
meats. 

88 Dead : dead of night. 
109 Oppian law : " This was a sumptuary law, passed during the 
time of the direst distress of Rome, when Hannibal was 
almost at the gates (215 b.c). It enacted that no woman 
should wear a gay colored dress, or have more than haK an 
ounce of gold ornaments, and that none should approach 
within a mile of any city or town in a car drawn by horses. 
The war being concluded, and the emergency over, the 
women demanded the repeal of the law. They gained one 
consul, but Cato, the other, resisted. The women rose, 
thronged the streets and forum, and harassed the magis- 
trates until the law was repealed (195 b.c.)." — Dawson. 

112 The tax: "A heavy tax imposed on Roman matrons by 

the second triumvirate (44 b.c). No man was found 
bold enough to oppose it; but Hortensia, daughter of Hor- 
tensius, the celebrated orator, spoke so eloquently against 
it that her oration was preserved to receive the praise of 
Quintilian. She was successful." — Dawson. 

113 Ax and eagle ; the signs of civil and military power. 



CANTO VII 129 

115 Wolffs milk: a reference to the legend that Romulus and 

Remus, the founders of Rome, were saved from death and 

suckled by a wolf. 
148 That other : Aphrodite, rising from the sea, whence she was 

born, to meet the Graces, who clothed her with every charm. 

^'An exquisite rapid picture of Aphrodite floating along 

the wave to her home at Paphos." — Bayard Taylor. 
167 Danae to the stars : open to their influence. Danae was the 

mother of Perseus, and had been imprisoned in a brazen 

tower, where Zeus appeared to her, and wooed her in a 

shower of gold. 
189 Silver horns : the sharp pinnacles of snow-covered Alpine 

peaks. 
191-193 The glaciers are split by deep crevasses down which 

the melting snow finds way and discharges itself at the 

glacier's foot. 
198 Water-smoke : slender waterfalls which, coming, from a great 

height, separate into fine spray as they fall, and so appear 

more like smoke than water. 
201 Pillars of the hearth : smoke from the cottages. 
230 The signs : the twelve signs of the Zodiac, through which 

lies the sun's apparent path in the heaven of stars. 
215 Lethe : the river of oblivion in Hades, used here to denote 

the unknown prenatal world. 
255 Burgeon: blossom. 
272 Full-summ'd : Fully developed. 
308 Music: an allusion to the old belief that the stars in their 

motions made music ; the music of the spheres. 
331 Blind half-world : the half of the world yet in darkness 

awaiting the day. 

CONCLUSION 

27 Diagonal: Resulting from the two opposing forces. 

49-71 " This passage did not appear till the third edition (pub- 
lished in 1850). We, no doubt, owe its insertion to the 
Revolution of 1818, when Louis Philippe, king of the 
French, was forced to abdicate, and a republic was estab- 
lished in the place of the monarchy. H may bo added 



130 



NOTES 



that on December 2, 1851, Charles Louis Napoleon, 
President of the Republic, seized the supreme power by an 
act of unconstitutional violence, and was next year pro- 
claimed Emperor of the French. This position he retained 
till 1870, when the empire was abolished and a republic 
reestablished. The hysterical wildness and lack of rever- 
ence and restraint that characterize the politics of ' Celtic 
Demos ' are extremely abhorrent to Walter Vivian, who 
may in this respect be said to represent the more sane and 
sober temper of the English people." — Wallace. 

49 Garden : England. 

50 There: France. 

51 Narrow sea : Dover Strait. 

66 Barring out : schoolboys barring the door against the master. 

78 Go-cart : a framework moving on casters, designed to aid a 
child in learning to walk. 

87 Pine : pineapples. 

90 Quarter-sessions : A minor court held quarterly. 

97 Rookery : the rooks, flying in a long line. 

111-115 The supreme powers, abiding in the unknowable infinite 
that seems mere darkness to human eyes, draw into them- 
selves the twilight of half knowledge in which human 
minds, seeking truth, sometimes wander; and leave only 
the stars, like faith, to witness the vastness and certainty 
of the world beyond knowledge, the heaven of heavens. 



QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDENTS 
READING THE POEM 

Prologue 

1. What is the setting of the Prologue? 

2. How many examples can you find of "every clime and age 
jumbled together"? What is their connection with the story? 

3. Name and describe the characters of the Prologue. 

4. Study the three' women characters of the Prologue as intro- 
ductory to the Princess Ida and her two friends. 

5. How does the discussion lead to the theme of the poem ? 

6. What is the symbolism of the silk-draped statue ? 

Canto I 

1. Study the character of the hero in relation to his father and 
mother ; compare him with Florian and Cyril. 

2. What conception of the Princess do you gain from the Prince ; 
from her father ; from the innkeeper ? 

3. Where does the action begin? What is its immediate 
motive ? 

4. What effect on the poem has the Prince's tendency to " weird 



seizures 



'»? 



5. What is the interpretation of the symbol of the entrance- 
arch ; of the inn-sign ; of the Prince's seal ? 

6. How does King Gama's account of tlie Princess's undertaking 
color your expectation ? 

Canto II 

1. Charles Kingsley says the songs "serve to call back the 
reader's mind, at every pause in the tale of the Princess's folly, to 
that very healthy ideal of womanhood which she has spurned." 
How is that true of this opening song? 

131 



132 NOTES 

2. What effect has the description of the college buildings on 
your attitude toward the Princess's undertaking ? 

3. Do the speeches and description of the Princess enlarge or 
alter your conception of her ? 

4. Why is the chief exposition of the theory of the college given 
by Lady Psyche? 

5. Wliat traits of Lady Psyche's character are revealed by the 
motives which bind her to silence ? 

6. How does the passage, lines 428-455, contrast with the Prin- 
cess's ideal ? 

Canto III 

1. Has the opening song any relation to the preceding section of 
the poem ? 

2. How does the discord between Lady Psyche and Lady 
Blanche affect the story? 

3. How does Melissa's character bring out Cyril's ; Florian's ; the 
Prince's ? 

4. What motives persuade Lady Blanche to silence ? Compare 
with Lady Psyche's motives. 

5. How do the Princess's words in lines 185-258 compare with 
those in Canto H., 34-52 ? 

6. Can you find any hints of what the outcome will be ? 

Canto IV 

1. Can you interpret this opening song in accordance with 
Kingsley's dictum (see IL, 1)? 

2. How does the song, Tears, Idle Tears, differ from the pre- 
ceding songs? How does it compare with Swallow, Swallow? 
(Note lines 67-69.) How does each affect the Princess ? 

3. For what purpose is the incident of the rescue of the Princess 
introduced? 

4. What phase of the Prince's enterprise is brought out in 
lines 180-194 and 239-251 ? How does it contrast with connect- 
ing passages ? 

5. What effect on the dignity of the poem has the Prince's 
speech, lines 399-448? 

6. Does the Princess's speech, lines 504-527, exalt her? 



QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 133 



Canto Y 

1. What consolations do Florian and the Prince offer Psyche? 
What is the true cause of her grief ? 

2. Which is the nearer right in his conception of women, — the 
Prince's father or King Gama? How far does the Prince's view 
coincide with theirs ? How far does Arac's ? 

3. What motives draw the Prince into the fight ? 

4. What admissions of weakness does the Princess Ida make in 
her letter ? 

5. How far does line 451 express Tennyson's attitude toward 
the Princess Ida? 

6. Why does the sorcerer's curse affect the Prince at this crisis, 
lines 457-531? 

Canto VI 

1. Show how the story of the introductory song, though con- 
taining the same elements of vanquished warrior, lady, and child, 
is yet unlike the story of the Princess. 

2. What contrasting phases of character are shown in the 
Princess's song of triumph and in her following action? 

3. Trace the motives that lead her to turn the college to a hos- 
pital. What changes her action toward Psyche? 

4. Interpret the symbolism in lines 328-351. 

5. Which have the more influence on the Princess in this part, 
— the men or the women ? 

6. How does the passage, lines 57-74, heighten the action ? 

Canto VII 

1. Has the introductory song more or less direct connection 
with the following canto than had the other songs? 

2. How does the surrounding action denoted in lines 40-75 
affect the action of the two principal characters ? 

3. What is the contrast of the passage, lines 101-117, to the 
preceding and following passages? 

4. Compare the methods by which the Prince succeeds with 
those his father would have had him use. 



134 NOTES 

5. Why did the Princess read both poems? Would not one 
have been sufficient ? Which one ? 

6. Does the Prince's speech, lines 239-345, give Tennyson's solu- 
tion of the problem ? 

Conclusion 

1. Does the author here justify his use of mingled true and 
mock epic ? 

2. Why does Lilia turn to her aunt for knowledge ? 

3. Has the passage about England and France anything to do 
with the theme of the poem ? 

4. Why was the description of Sir Walter Vivian delayed till 
the end of the poem ? 

5. Does the reverie in which the hearers returned to the abbey 
imply that they considered the problem still unsettled ? 

6. Show how Lilia's last action is symbolic of the end of the 
story. 



QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDENTS 
STUDYING THE POEM 

Prologue 

1. Line 12. Why are the flowers lovelier than their names? 

2. Describe a chronicle. 

3. Retell in simple prose the story quoted from the chronicle, 
lines 35-48. 

4. Explain lines 93, 117, 199, 218. 

5. What is the allusion in lines 204 and 231 ? 

6. Line 229. Why would Sir Ralph have burnt them all ? Con- 
nect this line with line 6, Canto I. 

Canto I 

1. Explain the connection of lines 3 and 4. 

2. Is the simile, lines 57-59, true and appropriate? 

3. Explain lines 106-107, 175. 

4. Line 124. Why does the King make this allusion ? 

5. Describe masques and pageants, line 195. 

6. Rewrite, in simple English, lines 197-200. 

Canto II 

1. Explain lines 2-4, 93-95, 403-410. 

2. Why has the Princess the leopards ? 

3. Does the simile in lines 87-88 denote admiration or scorn? 
Connect it with line 91, and with 150-152, Canto IV. 

4. Show how lines 155-165 are a conclusion for the preceding 
speech. 

5. Criticise the similes in lines 168-170, 305-307, 355-357. 

6. Lines 415-416. What colors? What flowers would they 
recall ? Compare lines 3, 303, 354, and 448. 

135 



136 NOTES 



Canto III 



1. Lines 1-2. Comment on the beauty and truth of this descrip- 
tion. Find and compare all other descriptions of morning in the 
poem. 

2. Explain the phrases " classical angel," line 54 ; " clang an 
eagle," line 90 ; " the green malignant light of coming storm," line 
116 ; " hushed amaze," line 122 ; " furrowy forks," line 158. 

3. How do the Princesses statements in lines 234-244 fit in with 
her action towards Agiaia? 

4. Lines 272-278. Describe the same scene in the simplest 
manner. 

5. What is the Princess talking of in lines 290-304 ? How does 
it fit into her later action ? 

6. Show the contrast of poetry and science in lines 338-347. 

Canto TV 

1. Compare line 1 with lines 345-347 of III., and show what the 
contrast signifies. 

2. Would the thought of lines 48-49 apply to the Princess Ida? 
See lines 12-17 and similar passages. 

3. Explain lines 59-63, 105-107, 305-308, 414-410. 

4. Line 133. Does the Princess forget for the moment that they 
are women to her ? 

.5. Lines 261-263, and 458. Criticise the simile. 

6. Describe from memory the scene in the college after the 
return from the expedition, naming and grouping the characters 
as if describing a picture. 

Canto V 

1. What has the Interlude to do with the effect of the story at 
this point ? 

2. Line 2. Explain. 

3. Lines 129-130. Does the outcome prove this ? 

4. Line 142. Find all other allusions in the poem to prehistoric 
animals. 



QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 137 

5. Explain " disprinced from head to heel," line 29 ; " piebald 
miscellany," line 190; "brainless war," line 290; "bronze valves," 
line 355 ; "this gadfly," line 404 ; "the fiery grain," line 411. 

6. Write out an epitome of the King's speech, lines 428-456. 
Describe from memory the tournament. 

Canto YI 

1. Lines 100-101. To what does this refer ? 

2. Why does Cyril intercede for Psyche ? 

3. Which one of the five figures applied to the Princess Ida, 
lines 69-73, 174, 253-254, 264-266, 311-313, is the most expressive 
of her appearance at the moment? Of her emotion? 

4. Explain lines 343-348. 

5. How many examples can you find in the whole poem to illus- 
trate lines 205-206 ? 

6. What rhetorical figure is used in lines 329-331 ? 

Canto VII 

1. Does the figure used in lines 31-32 add dignity to the con- 
ception of the Prince ? 

2. Compare the figures in lines 53-55, 100-103, 171-172. 

3. Explain lines 245-249. Compare the passage 239-280 with 
lines 155-165, Canto II. 

4. Find a line in the second lyric ("Come down, O maid") 
which explains lines 14-29. 

5. Is there any connection between lines 316-317 and lines 327- 
329? 

6. Comment on lines 335-337, and 341-342. 

Conclusion 

1. Lines 13-14. Has there been an earlier reference to this ? 

2. Line 30. What is the sequel of the tale ? 

3. Lines 65-70. What application has this to the story of the 
Princess ? 

4. Rewrite lines 80-90, expanding as nmch as will make it 
clearer to you. 

5. Describe, as if from a painting, the scene in lines 40-48. 

6. Line 118. Why " well pleased " V 



SELECT BIBLIOGEAPHY 



I. Life. Tennyson, H. Alfred Lord Tennyson. A Memoir. 

Ritchie, Mrs. Anne Thackeray. Records of Ten- 
nyson, Ruskin, and Browning. 

Waugh, A. Alfred Lord Tennyson. A Study of 
Ms Life and Work. 

Wace, W. E. Tennyson. His Life and Works. 
II. Country. Church, A. J. In the Laureate's Country. 

Napier, G. Homes and Haunts of Alfred Lord 
Tennyson. 

Walters, J. C. In Tennyson Land. 
III. Criticism. Bagehot, W. Literary Studies. 

Brooke, Stopford. Tennyson. His Art and Re- 
lation to Modern Life. 

Carr, J. C. A Neio Study of Tennyson. (Corn- 
hill Magazine, February and July, 1880.) 

Dawson, S. E. The Princess. A Study. 

Dixon, W. M. Primer of Tennysoti. 

Van Dyke, H. The Poetry of Tennyson. 

Gwynn, S. Tennyson. A Critical Study. 

Hadley, J. T. Essays. 

Hallam, A. H. Remains in Prose and Verse. 

Kingsley, C. Literary Essays. 

Luce, M. Handbook to Tennyson's Works. 

Masterman. Tennyson as a Religious Teacher. 

Noel, R. Essays on Poetry and. Poets. 

Gates, J. The Teaching of Tennyson. 

Robertson, F. W. Lectures and Addresses. 

Robertson, J. M. Essays toward a Critical Method. 

Saintsbury, G. A History of Nineteenth Century 
Literature. 

Shepherd, R. H. 

Stedman, E. C. 



Tennysoniana. 

Victorian Poets. 

Walters, J. C. Tennyson, Poet, Philosopher, Idealist. 

De Yere, Aubrey. Review of The Princess, " Ed« 

inburgh Review," CLXXXIL, Gctober, 1849. 

H'^91 85 '1 



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